Should Israel revert to electing its Prime Minister separately?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Israel is en route to hold its third election in a single year following multiple failed attempts to form a government.  From the 1990s until 2003, Israel had elected its Prime Minister separately from the Knesset.

Due to the large number of different political parties that exist currently, it is unlikely that a Prime Minister would be elected with a majority on the first ballot under this system today, although Israel seemed to have little trouble getting a Prime Minister elected in the past with this system as there were always two main candidates running.

Of course, I am not an expert on Israeli political history, so maybe someone like Sunrise or Parrotguy could enlighten me.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't really like the idea in theory (it kind of defeats the point of parliamentary democracy), but it's probably the only long-term solution at this point.

[Santander]

Very helpful insight.

[America Needs R'hllor]

We tried that in the past, from 1996 to 2003. It was abolished because it didn't work and produced Prime Ministers with unstable coalitions that collapsed fast. It's not the right way, I think, and neither is the suggestion to make whoever leads the biggest party the Prime Minister.

Honestly, our system would've worked if not the the disease called Netanyahu. Likud and KL would easily form a coalition, or Likud and whoever was the left-wing alternative if a Netanyahu-less country wouldn't have produced a party like KL.

[BP🌹]

Israel should be abolished.

Very helpful insight.

I do try my best.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It would make much more sense to just adopt the presidential system, instead of returning to that weird setup of having a parliamentary government, but with the PM elected separately. It was discarded for a good reason.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

This is exactly the kind of s**t that should be leading to a swift permaban.

[President Johnson]

Unpopular opinion: Splitted parliaments lead to instability (see Israel, Spain etc) and can lead to coalitions original voters of a party didn't intend. Switch to majority vote like in the US and UK and implement a presidential system.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Unpopular opinion: Splitted parliaments lead to instability (see Israel, Spain etc) and can lead to coalitions original voters of a party didn't intend. Switch to majority vote like in the US and UK and implement a presidential system.

Ah, yes, brilliant idea. So Netanyahu can go full Orban and entrench himself with a permanent majority.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Unpopular opinion: Splitted parliaments lead to instability (see Israel, Spain etc) and can lead to coalitions original voters of a party didn't intend. Switch to majority vote like in the US and UK and implement a presidential system.

Ah, yes, brilliant idea. So Netanyahu can go full Orban and entrench himself with a permanent majority.

Actually history has shown that FPTP makes it easier to remove governments from power.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Unpopular opinion: Splitted parliaments lead to instability (see Israel, Spain etc) and can lead to coalitions original voters of a party didn't intend. Switch to majority vote like in the US and UK and implement a presidential system.

Ah, yes, brilliant idea. So Netanyahu can go full Orban and entrench himself with a permanent majority.

Actually history has shown that FPTP makes it easier to remove governments from power.

lol that's a new one

You realize you can't have it both ways, right? Either FPP promotes Stability (which is Good) or it makes it easier to remove governments (which is Also Good) . One claim directly contradicts the other.

[The Mikado]

The list of things that had to break to make Israeli democracy as farcical as it is now is very long. Just as an example, the Haredi parties (Shas and UTJ) used to be agnostic as to which coalition they could work with and supported Labour and Likud governments alike...now it's unthinkable for a Likud government to not be allied with them.

There's a part of me which thinks that lowering the threshold back to 2% might actually, against all reason and logic, be a good thing. It could break up some of these weird "huddling together for warmth" conglomeration parties and maybe open it up so that there's more little 2 and 3 seat parties for the big ones to buy off to make forming a coalition transactionally easier.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Unpopular opinion: Splitted parliaments lead to instability (see Israel, Spain etc) and can lead to coalitions original voters of a party didn't intend. Switch to majority vote like in the US and UK and implement a presidential system.

Ah, yes, brilliant idea. So Netanyahu can go full Orban and entrench himself with a permanent majority.

Actually history has shown that FPTP makes it easier to remove governments from power.

lol that's a new one

You realize you can't have it both ways, right? Either FPP promotes Stability (which is Good) or it makes it easier to remove governments (which is Also Good) . One claim directly contradicts the other.

Actually no you can have changes in government but still be stable as most changes in government in FPTP result majority governments or defacto majority governments.

[Santander]

This is exactly the kind of s**t that should be leading to a swift permaban.

Yeah, we definitely don't want him to grow into a forum institution.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

FPTP makes sense with two or three major parties ("major" in a sense of Democrats, Republicans, Labour or Tories). In such country like Israel it would lead to a majority of the voting population not having any representation. Having a reasonable threshold is another thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Israel needs a different electoral system. Either STV or actually using districts for PR. Not a Presidential system (imagine Netanyahu with Trump's power) or a FPTP parliament, (holy sh!t would that be a disaster and I don't even want to think of the issues with the district drawing.)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

idea for an Isreali electoral reform: 100 members elected from 50 two-member districts elected via STV and 50 PR seats with no threshold.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Really, the whole premise that Israel's woes can be fixed by electoral reform is false. There are things that should be reformed about Israeli institutions (having a mechanism for appointing an interim PM when no one commands the confidence of the Knesset would help a lot), but at the end of the day, Israel's real problem is a Netanyahu problem.