Israel General Elections || 23.03.2021

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

the seat it moved from Ra'am to Meretz.

Nice.

[CityofSinners]

For me it is rather unlikely that Netenyahu manages to form a coalition. The anti-Netenyahu block just doesn't have a lot of incentive to defect.

On policy grounds it would be easier to form a center-right goverment without Netenyahu. The past 4 elections have clearly shown that there is a solid center-right majority but Netenyahu's himself prevents a stable center-right goverment.
Looking at Gantz breaking your anti-Netenyahu pledge doesn't pay off. Neither for the politican personaly nor electoraly.

The opposition also can wait for two things. The corruption trail making Netenyahu untenable as PM or Gantz taking over in November.
As the last elections have shown there is not a lot of risks for the opposition if Netenyahu forces a fifth election.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

On policy grounds it would be easier to form a center-right goverment without Netenyahu. The past 4 elections have clearly shown that there is a solid center-right majority but Netenyahu's himself prevents a stable center-right goverment.

Yes, the median Israeli voter pretty obviously wants a right-liberal government without the Kahanists but maybe with the Haredim. It's just Bibi's personality that prevents this.

[Hnv1]

Would that even be enough to change what's going on? Bibi could always offer some obvious stand-in for himself as a candidate for Prime Minister. (Or just keep running and promise to change the law to re-qualify himself if he wins, since arguably the point of the whole 2019-present political crisis is the immunity law, which Bibi wouldn't want if he weren't Prime Minister.)

The formation of New Hope seemed to offer a, well, new hope to end the crisis by convincing pro-Bibi voters over to the anti-Bibi side, but its total flameout suggests that was never going to happen. If persuasion over the course of repeated elections doesn't work, then the crisis keeps going until Likud chooses, voluntarily, to get rid of Bibi and come up with a different candidate who can convince the Yisrael Beiteinu and New Hope people to rejoin their coalition. That's probably not possible unless/until Bibi actually goes to jail.

(Kind of looking forward to Gantz taking over in November at this point.)

In regards to the bolded, the proposed law wouldn't allow him to actually keep running himself unless & until it's been formally repealed.

As for everything else, the short answer is basically deep game theory magic: that is, an entire system based on the absolute power, influence, infallibility, & (frankly, the) undefeatability of one man is gonna more-or-less just absolutely be shocked to its core when he's legally forced to no longer put his own name on the ballot, with himself no longer holding formal control over Israeli politics, Likud politics, & a significant amount of the careers thereof as a result. I mean, do you really think that if Miki Zohar or somebody like him were put up by Bibi as a stand-in for his being PM, then Zohar wouldn't be sorely tempted to just use his newly-acquired power to not repeal the ban & willingly hand his formal power back over to Bibi? And that's just one consideration of such a leadership conundrum. Basically, though, it's presumed that such a point would basically amount to what would finally be the catastrophic tipping point at which Bibi's absolute leadership would basically just crumble.

Now that Gantz was elected again the interim duumiverate government is unchallenged. Unless a government is sworn in no new one will be sworn before November even if there is a fifth cycle.

There are two pending legal questions though:
- is the interim government fully in place, i.e., is the predesignated rotation date in place despite the fall of the government. It would seem the answer is yes...though to be frank there is very little legal material (local or comparative) to base it on.
- The SC published its ruling today that Bibi is in conflict of interest regarding appointing judges and the AG. In a section of a ruling, they did say the AG position is obligatory towards the government but he cannot enforce it. Come November the AG might announce Gantz has PM authorities but Bibi might refuse to accept it and try to continue to direct government agencies. I'm not sure what will happen if some ministries held by Likud refuse to comply with orders from Gantz and listen only to Bibi. Now that will be chaotic.

Wasn't the rotation agreement codified into the Basic Law, though? Short of a new government being formed before Nov. 17th, how does the law as currently promulgated not force Bibi to keep to the agreement & step aside then?

So is it sighs or tears??? Do we have 61?

Last batches returned to normal distribution so the changes are now unlikely. We have our seat allocation now let the games begin.

As I said the solution could come in the presidential election in June. I’ll be looking closely at that

Is there any chance Netenyahu is able to woo/bribe/threaten Sa'ar into returning to the fold or no?

I mean, it obviously worked last time on Gantz, so who knows how successful their fooling might be this time? Gun to my head, though, I think even Sa'ar would refuse such pressure at this point: he's been adamant about his refusal to join Bibi or the RZP, not least after having seen how Gantz lost a lot of support. Of course, he'll still undoubtedly be pressured, though, but it'll be up to him to refuse it.

A. the change to the Basic Law wouldn't prevent Bibi from running as we elect lists and they're changing the eligibility to be a MK. So he could run, and if his bloc gets a majority someone from Likud will form a government that will change the basic law and allow him to become PM.

B. but as you said in a game-theoretic way I'm sure the sheer change will shock the system and also confuse a lot of his voters. Also, Bibi contemplated a similar move to get rid of the rotation government but he decided against it in order to avoid placing someone as PM from Likud for a second. Sometimes temporary things become permanent...

C. Most of the rotation agreement was codified, but that government fell. The continuity of government principle states that the last elected government continues until a new one is sworn in, but does that include the rotation clause? it certainly not a logical entailment, and of course no where on earth to look for an analogy. It seems the answer is yes as the rotation government enjoyed the confidence of the house and was sworn in as such...though Bibi could very much topple the entire system at that point (leading to my second clause there)
 
D. I wouldn't count on many defectors. Tamano-Shata with Gantz the exception here. and then it's 60-60. he could try a long shot swearing a minority government and making someone in Raam skip the vote at the last minute... a risky move. anyway, before he does that he needs to get the mandate to form a government from the president, who so far hinted that he will not give Bibi such a mandate without a majority (as he did in 2020 when he refused to give him a mandate until 61 MKs signed for him).

[Hnv1]

99.9% counted. Meretz has 6 seats. The president will hold his meetings with the different parties on Monday, April 5th after the bank holiday (and after everyone talked to everyone before).

I think Lapid needs to court JL and Raam to get the mandate just so YA gets the house committee and they can start to move against the speaker and then Bibi

[Oryxslayer]

Recently woke up, good to see the Double Envelopes got counted fast. Looks like we are back at a defectors-needed situation for govt given the mutual distrust of certain faction members.

[jaymichaud]

https://twitter.com/likud_party/status/1375109628363747331?s=21

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

https://twitter.com/likud_party/status/1375109628363747331?s=21

omfgosh they're seriously going with an Israeli version of the "74 million Trump voters" talking point

[GALeftist]

Someone might have already come up with this but in light of potentially continued deadlock

[PSOL]

Israel needs to just legalize weed and just go vibing. Fo-sho that will end the stress of partisanship and unite everyone.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

Where we can find the list of candidates?

[jaymichaud]

Where we can find the list of candidates?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_lists_for_the_2021_Israeli_legislative_election

[Vosem]

Result by party for each of the four elections, and average. Ultimately deciding what counts as a "separate party" and what doesn't is very difficult; my initial rule was disaffiliating where the parties have sometimes run separately, but as a kludge I included Ta'al as a separate party (rather than aggregating with Hadash), aggregated Telem as part of Blue and White (because no one was voting for Ya'alon, really), and just considered Gesher to be Orly Levy switching sides a bunch of times rather than something real. Here are the results:

Likud (Netanyahu): 35/33/36/30 (average 33.5)
Blue and White (Gantz): 20/20/20/8 (average 17)
Yesh Atid (Lapid): 15/13/13/17 (average 14.5)
Shas (Deri): 8/9/9/9 (average 8.75)
United Torah Judaism (Litzman/Gafni): 8/7/7/7 (average 7.25)
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman): 5/8/7/7 (average 6.75)
Labor (Gabbai/A. Peretz/Michaeli): 6/6/4/7 (average 5.75)
Meretz (Zandberg/Horowitz): 4/5/3/6 (average 4.5)
URWP/RZP (R. Peretz/Smotrich): 5/4/3/6 (average 4.5)
Hadash (Odeh): 4/5/5/3 (average 4.25)
New Right/Yamina (Bennett): 0/3/3/7 (average 3.25)
Ra'am (Abbas): 2/3/4/4 (average 3.25)
Balad (Shehadeh/Abu-Shehadeh): 2/3/3/1 (average 2.25)
Ta'al (Tibi): 2/2/3/2 (average 2.25)
New Hope (Sa'ar): -/-/-/6 (average 1.5)
Kulanu (Kachlon): 4/-/-/- (average 1)

Many of these numbers are very constant, but a surprising number are really not; over the course of 4 elections there actually has been a great deal of churn. It's just that none of the results have been conducive to anything actually getting done.

[Progressive Pessimist]

So is it sighs or tears Do we have 61?

Was this a Dario Argento reference?

[brucejoel99]

At the very least, all of this must provide a sense of total & complete faith in the integrity of Israel's electoral process. After all, there just can't be a secret cabal somewhere that would willingly conspire to arrange for all of this bullsh*t.

[Logical]

After 11 straight elections where their raw vote total increased, the UTJ vote had a decline to 248k. Is that a record?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Torah_Judaism#Election_results

[Progressive Pessimist]

At the very least, all of this must provide a sense of total & complete faith in the integrity of Israel's electoral process. After all, there just can't be a secret cabal somewhere that would willingly conspire to arrange for all of this bullsh*t.

But Jews are involved! How can that be!?

Usually I don't do this but DISCLAIMER: I'm a Jew and am being completely satirical, if any of that wasn't clear.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

At the very least, all of this must provide a sense of total & complete faith in the integrity of Israel's electoral process. After all, there just can't be a secret cabal somewhere that would willingly conspire to arrange for all of this bullsh*t.

But Jews are involved! How can that be!?

Usually I don't do this but DISCLAIMER: I'm a Jew and am being completely satirical, if any of that wasn't clear.

We are the world's least competent puppetmasters.

[Estrella]

A summary of the last two years from ag on the other Atlas:

"For you to live to see the 40th Knesset" sounds like a Jewish blessing - except that it might, actually, be a curse.

[cinyc]

My attempt at an interactive map of this week's Israel results by locality:

https://cinycmaps.com/index.php/2-uncategorized/88-israel-24th-knesset-election-2021-interactive-map

What's it going to take to break the stalemate?

[America Needs R'hllor]

After 11 straight elections where their raw vote total increased, the UTJ vote had a decline to 248k. Is that a record?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Torah_Judaism#Election_results

Idk if it's a record, but the reason is that a lot of Haredim were disappointed in their politicians actions during the covid-19 pandemic and thus... Voted for Smotrich-Ben Gvir.

[brucejoel99]

What's it going to take to break the stalemate?

A 5th election.

[Hnv1]

My attempt at an interactive map of this week's Israel results by locality:

https://cinycmaps.com/index.php/2-uncategorized/88-israel-24th-knesset-election-2021-interactive-map

What's it going to take to break the stalemate?

a military coup followed by a constitutional convention

[Hnv1]

It seems Ra'am will not be on board to change the Basic Law, so unless Yamina will somehow be swayed we're on the fast track to the fifth cycle. That is unless someone wakes up and use the presidential option I espouse.

Timeline:
March 31 - confirmation of the results (Article 11 Basic Law: The Knesset)
April 5th - the President will hold a consultation with all factions in the house
April 7th - the President will have to give the mandate to try and form a government to someone. per the custom whoever has at least 61 recommendations will get the mandate automatically, otherwise, the president has a wider discretion considering the number of recommendations and likelihood to form a government. (Article 7 Basic Law: The Government).
May 5th - the initial 28 days for government formation ends, the president can extend that period by an additional 14 days ((Article 8 Basic Law: The Government), the president can decline to grant the extension as was the case with Gantz in 2020. If no government is formed in that time then the president has three days to decide on one of the following courses of action (Article 9 Basic Law: The Government):
- give the mandate to a different candidate who now has 28 days with no extension
- announce to the speaker of the house that he sees no route for the formation of a government and move directly to phase III (as was the case in 2020).

Phase III: if the second candidate fails to form a government or the president announces he sees no option for such a scenario then the decision moves to the Knesset for 21 days in which anyone who manages to get 61 signatures will be given the mandate. The president will grant him the mandate in 2 days and then that candidate has 14 days to try and form a government. that candidate could be one of those who failed to form a government in earlier phases. (Article 10 Basic Law: The Government). If the time lapses then we have another election after 90 days.

Simultaneously:
Anytime between 24.4 to 24.6 the Knesset must elect a new president. The speaker must announce the date of the election three weeks in advance, meaning any time between 3.4 to 3.6. (Article 5 Basic Law: The President). Any candidate must get the signatures of 10 MKs.

The new Knesset will meet for the first time on April 6th.
 

[Walmart_shopper]

I don't know, I feel like an alternative government (whether with the Arab parties or with Bennet) is more likely now than at any point in the previous three elections. The more that people get sick of elections, they get sick of Bibi. And the more they get sick of Bibi the more flexible their principles become in terms of forming a government.