[lbo-talk] The Day After: The Burden of Forming a Coalition

Bryan Atinsky bryan at alt-info.org
Wed Mar 29 14:58:53 PST 2006


Sergio Yahni, a former director of the AIC, who now does international advocacy for the AIC, wrote this up today about the Israeli election results and the move towards the creation of a viable coalition.

Thought to pass it on.

Bryan --------

http://alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=394&Itemid=1&lang=ISO-8859-1

The Day After: The Burden of Forming a Coalition

Sergio Yahni, AIC

Sharon’s big bang redrew the political map of Israel, but not as he hoped. By splitting the Likud and creating Kadima in November 2005, Sharon hoped to win 55 seats in the March 2006 election and establish a new hegemonic force at the center of Israel’s political map. The post electoral reality is quite different.

With 28 Members of Knesset (MK’s) Kadima, which boasts the largest parliamentary representation, is far from a hegemonic force. This means that in order to establish a government coalition, it will have to negotiate with at least three political parties. However, due to Olmert’s limited negotiating margin, his future government partners will raise their political demands as well the distribution of ministerial portfolios in the new government.

Olmert will obviously enjoy the support of the brand-new Pensioner’s Party, but Labor and Meretz may condition their support on continuing the disengagement process. Moreover, Meretz and Labor, under certain conditions, and responding to foreign initiatives, may pressure for negotiations with Hamas.

The political relationship with other potential members of the coalition will be more complex. The Jewish orthodox parties—Shas and Yahadut Ha’Torah (Torah Judaism)—are eager join the coalition, but Shas’s constituents in particular generally oppose the disengagement. The party will be vulnerable to political attacks if the disengagement provokes settlers-army/police violence and may demand delays in its implementation. On the other had, it will be difficult for Meretz to be in a coalition with Shas as a partner. With the support of the center, the center left and the orthodox parties, Olmert is able to have a coalition supported by 78 MKs. The same coalition without Meretz will have the support of 74.

The main political weakness of a coalition composed of Kadima, Labor, the Pensioner’s Party, Shas and Torah Judaism is that in the eyes of the public it will appear as a center-left government (Labor, Meretz and Shas comprised the 1992 Rabin government). The right wing will attack this government during the disengagement for not being nationalist enough and for deporting Jews from their houses. Therefore, Olmert may want Meretz in the opposition in order to improve its image as a party of the center.

As an alternative, Olmert can decide to create a right wing coalition of 66 MKs in partnership with Lieberman’s Israel Betenu (Israel is Our Home), the Pensioner’s Party, Shas and Torah Judaism. However, this means very complex negotiations towards the implementation of disengagement plans. Labor and even Meretz may join this coalition, but the right-wing partners will then likely commit themselves to voting against the disengagement in the government and for the disengagement in parliament. Olmert may even provide coalition partners with voting freedom on all issues regarding disengagement. In this case, the coalition may enjoy the support of 86 MKs, without Meretz or 90 MKs with it.

Olmert’s problem will be how to distribute the ministerial portfolios, especially those with operational value, such as Security, Foreign Affairs and Education. With 28 MKs in parliament, Kadima has a very limited margin to negotiate. On the other hand, Kadima is a new type of party: it does not have a constituency, activists or party institutions. Public relations and temporary employment companies run the campaign. At the end of the day, what is holding Kadima together is not ideology or vision of common interests, but the thirst for power. The ministerial portfolio concessions that Kadima’s government partners demand will leave many Kadima MKs upset and ready to join the opposition if they feel it will serve their interests.

In order to build a stable government in a highly volatile parliament, Olmert will be forced to make political and ministerial concessions to its future coalition partners. Those concessions may increase Kadima’s own internal instability. However, surprisingly, over the last ten years, the Israeli political system has proved to be extremely volatile and stable simultaneously: despite the frequent government coalition changes and the incapacity of any ruling party to complete its four year term, there is consistency in Israel’s socio-economical policies as well as the policies implemented towards the Palestinian population. The incoming government will not be different.



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