Posted on 02/11/2009 3:13:50 AM PST by SkyPilot
JERUSALEM (AP) - Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hard-line rival Benjamin Netanyahu both claimed victory Tuesday in Israel's parliamentary election but official results suggested the race was too close to call.
Right-wing parties - including Netanyahu's Likud Party - appear to have won a clear majority of 64 seats in the 120-seat parliament, which would give Netanyahu the upper hand in forming the next government.
However, with more than two-thirds of the votes counted, Livni's centrist Kadima Party had 29 seats, while Likud had 28. Those results could change by a seat or two when soldiers' votes are tallied Thursday evening.
The winner of the election wasn't clear in part because Livni could try to form a coalition with hawkish parties. It appeared one ultranationalist candidate, Avigdor Lieberman, could single-handedly determine the country's next leader with his decision of whom to join.
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(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Come on, Bibi!
Interesting how news came right out and said the O’bozo administration would strongly prefer that Livni and Kadima win.
Bibi does not have a majority, and the broad has even less of one. This is a PARLIAMENT (read "Parliament of Whores"). Those "other right-wing parties" everyone is so blythely assured will vote with Bibi, are about as reliable as a Renault in the rain.
They sell their support to the highest bidder and it's never cheap.
While I agree our political system is better, at least with the Israeli political system the likes of shifty Tzipo Livni may no be able to form a viable, working coalition, due to the lesser Orthodox parties {hopefully} being more in tune with conservative Likud.
The following information should clear things up a bit:
'Israeli Political System and Parties - Israel has the most democratic government in the Middle East. All citizens over the age of 18, regardless of sex, religion or ethnic group can vote and serve in the government. Jews, Arabs and Druze all serve as members of the Knesset, and one (Ghaleb Majadle)has served as a minister in the outgoing (2008) government. To date, no Arab party has served in any coalition government. Racist parties or parties that strive to subvert or overthrow the state are outlawed.
Israel does not have a constitution, but it does have a number of basic laws that govern how the government is structured, rights of individuals and similar matters. Attempts to create a constitution have been blocked by religious parties, who do not want to formalize separation of religion and state.
Israel has a parliamentary democracy system with partial separation of powers between the judicial branch on the one hand, and the legislative and executive branches on the other. The President is largely a ceremonial figurehead. The post was probably created in part by David Ben-Gurion to honor Chaim Weizmann (see Presidents of Israel). The President is elected by the Knesset.
120 members of the Knesset (parliament) are elected in nation-wide elections from party lists. The head of the party that has the best chance of forming a coalition (usually, but not necessarily the party with the largest number of mandates) is then chosen by the President to attempt to form a government. Since no party has ever won a majority, a coalition must be formed.
The Israeli system is not like the British system, in which members are elected from districts. Rather, it is like the French Fourth Republic system. The members are chosen from party lists, and are elected in proportion to the number of votes received by the party, according to the predetermined order of candidates that was presented to the elections commission. As a result, the members are not beholden to a particular constituency and some of the back-bench members of larger lists are virtual unknowns. In theory, this produces a system based on ideologies represented in the party platforms.
In the early years of the state this resulted in the formation of numerous small lists. The law has been amended repeatedly to raise the minimum percentage required for a party to enter the Knesset. According to the latest revision (Bader-Ofer Law), a party that receives less than 2% of the vote gets no representation at all, and its votes are "lost" - they are distributed proportionately. Excess vote of different parties that passed the minimum may be traded according to prior agreement.
A peculiarity of the system is that even though members are elected to lists, the mandate belongs to the individual. Individuals or groups may split off from the main party taking their mandates with them. Often they do leave to form new lists and one person "factions," resulting in a bewildering array of tiny "parties" that usually exist for one Knesset session only. Individuals or groups that leave with the intention of forcing a change in their party often form "lists" rather than parties, indicating that the ideological platform is the same as that of the original party, but the personnel are different. Such lists (reshimot) usually last for one or two elections. The Rafi list of David Ben-Gurion was one such party.'
Source: Source, more data & with multiple links.
Onward to a Likud victory for the survival of Eretz Yisrael.
The Israeli "Right Wing" is code for patriotic socialist. The Israeli "Left Wing" does not differ greatly on economics, except that they want to join hands (occasionally and publicly) with Muslims and sing "Coom-by-AH" while trading "land for peace."
Thanks for posting this great political pie breakdown. Let us hope for the best!
The bottom line of the graph looks like FRee Republic and the hard core my way or the highway niche conservatives earlier this year.
From your keyboard to God’s eyes. (With respect)
Great news. This is from the National Review on this subject:
An overwhelming number of Israelis voted to place security over a two state peace process. The Right has the clearest majority since Menachim Begin became PM. Forming a coalition on the same security principles (the number one issue in this campaign) will be relatively easy. Benjamin Netanyahu will be the next PM. He will probably ask Kadima and Labor to join but needs neither.(Even Israel's Left leaning media concedes that Netanyahu is in the drivers seat. By the way the Likud Party grew more than any other - doubling in size)I just learned that less than 30,000 votes separate Kadima from Likud and that there are 200,000 military ballots being counted and they always break Right. But no matter what the final vote total the next government will be Right wing and its number one objective will be to stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. link
Thank you very much for those kind words.
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