home > by publication type > op-eds > An Election, but Who Won?
Email
| Author: | Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
|---|
February 23, 2009
Weekly Standard
No doubt President Obama had planned to call the winner of Israel's Tuesday elections to offer congratulations and suggest a visit to Washington. But Israel's bizarre and dysfunctional electoral system has produced no winner, only a mess likely to produce a weak government and perhaps new elections in two years or less.
As in the United States in 2000, there was no clear winner on election night. The Knesset has 120 members, so 61 are needed to govern. Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party increased its strength in parliament from 12 seats to 27, but this was one fewer than Tzipi Livni's Kadima party--and a disappointment because polls had led everyone to expect he would surpass her easily. Yet despite this good result for Livni, there was no victory for the left or center-left, for the Labor party fell to a historic low of 13 seats, and Meretz, further to the left, won only 3.
But our presidential system ultimately produced a single winner with full presidential powers in 2000. Winner really does take all in the United States. In Israel's parliamentary system, power will be divided in a fractious Knesset and in a coalition cabinet where whoever is prime minister will not have a majority for his or her own party--just a collection of ministers linked more by a desire for power than by ideological or political consensus.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.