Th e Direct Election of the Prime Minister in Israel’s Constitutional System (1992-2001)
Journal Title: Białostockie Studia Prawnicze - Year 2016, Vol 0, Issue 20
Abstract
In Israel, in the period from 1992 to 2001, for the fi rst and only time in the history of modern democracies, the law was changed to enable direct elections for the Prime Minister. Th is was an attempt to circumvent weaknesses in the political system which were mostly attributed to the strict rule of proportional representation in electing the Knesset: a high degree of fragmentation and ideological polarisation of parliament, excessive power of small sectarian parties, lengthy processes of forming coalition governments, and the dysfunction of government and political institutions in general. Direct elections for the Prime Minister were supposed to increase stability, effi ciency and legitimacy of the Prime Minister, government and political system. Th e reform was unsuccessful because the expectations of its creators – that the voters would adapt to the new institutional rules – failed to materialise. Instead of expressing undivided political loyalty to the Prime Ministerial candidate and his party, most voters divided their votes in the simultaneous elections for Prime Minister and parliament: the huge majority gave one vote to the candidate for Prime Minister of one of the two biggest parties, Labour Party or Likud, while the second vote was used massively to support small parties. Th e reform further deepened the crisis of the political system and produced numerous theoretical dilemmas about its nature.
Authors and Affiliations
Stanisław Bożyk
Keywords
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- EP ID EP342919
- DOI 10.15290/bsp.2016.20A.04
- Views 36
- Downloads 0
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