The Elections in Israel 1996

7. The Electoral Consequences of Political Reform:In Search of the Center of the Israeli Party System

CHAPTER 7 The Electoral Consequences of Political Reform In Search of the Center of the Israeli Party System REUVEN Y. HAZAN The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Left and Right, meet in the Center; Security and Peace, meet in the Center; Secular and Religious, meet in the Center; Also the head and the heart, meet in the Center. -Third Way Party advertising jingle INTRODUCTION: A NEW ELECTORAL TREND AND TECHNIQUE One of the most significant ramifications resulting from the first implementation of the new Basic Law: The Government (1992), which calls for the direct election of the prime minister, is a dramatic change in the competitive electoral orientation of the Israeli party system. It was expected that direct elections would force the candidates for prime minister to battle over the undecided, centrally-located, floating voters -which they did. However, an attenuated, yet similar, impact could also be perceived at the level of the Knesset elections. That is, despite the extreme proportionality of the electoral system and the polarized nature of the party system, the political reform brought about a comprehensive change in the direction of the parties' electoral competition, reversing a long-time centrifugal trend which had come to characterize Israel's multiparty system. This chapter sets out to describe the consequences of the political reform-the creation of an institutionally unique regime type-on the electoral dynamics of the party system-the convergence toward the center in both the prime 163 164 Hazan ministerial and the Knesset elections-and to elaborate on the continued impact of this new trend on Israeli politics. Much like the election campaign itself, this chapter focuses largely on the parties' electoral strategy as it was expressed in the media campaign . The two big parties concentrated on the mass media in their campaign efforts in order to reach the undecided voters in the dominant race for prime minister-those voters who would make the ultimate decision in the 1996 elections. The remaining parties, mainly in response to this emphasis and to the new competitive orientation of the Israeli party system in 1996, also concentrated on their media campaigns. Parlor meetings, public debates, mass rallies, and other typical Israeli campaign tactics almost disappeared. Apart from the youth movements who took over the major intersections to hand out stickers, and the paid workers who pasted posters on bulletin boards, the 1996 electoral strategy in the parties' campaigns was largely carried out in the media. Moreover, as the polls narrowed and the election approached, and due to an Israeli law that inhibits news coverage of candidates during the last three weeks of the campaign (a law that will not be in effect in future elections), the best way to reach the target audience of floating voters was through the media. Therefore, the parties' reliance and focus on their media campaigns increased in importance and emphasis as the campaign progressed toward its highly competitive finale. THE ELECTORAL AND POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT The monumental reform of the Basic Law: The Government-originally enacted in 1968, and amended in 1992-changed the electoral, political, and constitutional systems in Israel (for a discussion of the politics leading to the electoral reform see Diskin and Diskin 1995; for a description and analysis of the new system see Hazan 1996 and 1997b; for contrasting opinions concerning this kind of system see Bogdanor 1993; Lijphart 1993; Sartori 1994). The new Basic Law: The Government makes Israel the first country to directly and popularly elect its prime minister, concur;-ent with the Knesset elections. This new system was first implemented in the 1996 elections. The prime minister was elected, according to the new law, using the two-ballot system-similar to French and Russian presidential elections-thus requiring an absolute majority. The Knesset, on the other hand, continued to be elected by an extreme form of proportional representation , with the entire country serving as one constituency and the threshold set at only 1.5 percent. The main political reform resulting from the new Basic Law is that by directly electing its prime minister, Israel ceased to be a purely The Electoral Consequences ofPolitical Reform 165 parliamentary democracy. In parliamentarism, the executive emerges from and is responsible to the legislature-a fusion of powerswhereas in presidentialism, there exists a separation of executive origin and survival from the legislature. As of 1996, with the direct election of the prime minister, the head of the executive branch no longer...