BY PROF. PAUL EIDELBERG
Abba Eban is unhappy about the stalled “peace process” (“A
Disastrous Process,” Jerusalem Post, July 10, 1998). He believes he speaks
for the nation when he says Israel “is beginning to feel that its prime
minister does not take the public interest seriously.” He blames not only
Mr. Netanyahu for this “disastrous” state of affairs, but the electoral
system that made Netanyahu Israel’s first nationally elected prime minister.
Mr. Eban writes: “The direct election of the prime minister has violated
every principle of decent international order.” A remarkable non sequitur.
True, parliamentary regimes do not have direct [popular] election of the prime
minister; but what has this to do with “every principle of decent international
order”?
The law concerning direct popular election of the prime minister could not have
been enacted without the blessings of the Labor party, which controlled the
Government when the law was passed. And the law was supported by no less than
Dr. Yossi Beilin, a political scientist.
What ostensibly disturbs Eban, and now Beilin, is that 61 votes (an absolute
majority of the Knesset) are now required to topple the (Netanyahu) Government
by a vote of no-confidence. Under the previous system, when the prime minister
was drawn from the plurality party in the Knesset, any simple majority could
overturn the Government. Mr. Eban -- add former Likud Defense Minister Moshe
Arens -- would have us believe that direct election of the prime minister undermines
the principle of “checks and balances” by making it more difficult
for the Knesset to successfully pass a no-confidence motion.
But surely Messrs. Eban, Arens, and Beilin know that no Israeli government has
ever been overturned by a vote of no confidence, unless it was the 1990 government
of national unity, when, in a bid for power (which failed), Labor chairman Shimon
Peres persuaded Shas to desert the national coalition!
The truth is Israel has never had an effective system of institutional checks
and balances. Nor will it so long as Knesset Members (MKs) owe their position,
salary, and perks not to constituencies but to their party leaders -- in this
case to ministers composing the Government. No less than David Ben-Gurion opposed
the present system, where Israelis vote for fixed party lists, not for individual
candidates. As any political scientist should know, fixed party lists leads
to self-perpetuating oligarchies or party dictatorship. Since MKs do not have
to return to constituencies to be reelected, they can (and do) ignore public
opinion with impunity.
In fact, of 75 nations having democratic elections for the lower (or only) branch
of the legislature, ISRAEL IS THE ONLY ONE THAT DOES NOT HAVE DIRECT, POPULAR
ELECTION! Despite this most undemocratic aspect of Israel’s political
system, Eban has the audacity to declare that so long as direct [popular] election
of the prime minister prevails, “Israel will have no right to call itself
a democracy”!
Eban’s rhetoric obscures the ulterior motive of those who initially supported
popular election of the prime minister. As any child could see, popular election
would enhance the PM’s power vis-à-vis the Knesset. The avowed
objective of those who advocated of popular election was to free the prime minister
from “political extortion” within the cabinet, consisting as it
does of diverse party leaders with different agendas. But their unavowed motive
was to diminish the influence of the religious parties. What they failed to
foresee, however, is that popular election of the prime minister -- and what
could be more democratic? -- would actually strengthen the religious parties!
Here is why.
Under the old system, many voters, who identified with Shas or Mafdal, cast
their votes for the Likud, lest the Labor Party gain control of the Government
and pursue its secular agenda and/or land-for-peace policy. But now, under the
new system, citizens can vote not only for the prime ministerial candidate of
their choice, but for the Knesset party of their choice. In other words, they
can now vote a split-ticket, as is done in the United States and France. This
is precisely why the religious parties won 23 seats in the 1996 elections, seven
more than in the 1992 elections.
Having learned from this experience, Eban and others want to resurrect the old
system, which they justify with misleading catchwords like “checks and
balances” and “democracy.” Both theory and the practice of
nations indicate that representative democracy with institutional checks and
balances necessitates direct, popular election of the Knesset. Of course, this
mode of election would break the oligarchic power of the parties. Hence, to
expect the latter to support direct, popular election of the Knesset is like
asking chickens to vote for Colonel Sanders.