Israeli legislative elections of 2006

The Israeli legislative Élections of 2006 were held the March 28th 2006 to designate the members of the 17th Knesset, following the agreement found between the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and the new one directing workers party, Amir Peretz.

Electoral procedures

The elections renewed the 120 seats of the Israeli Parlement (Knesset) according to a representation proportional starting from the lists proposed by the political parties. A threshold of 2% of the votes is necessary to allocate seats with a list (this threshold was raised because it was of 1,5% at the time of the preceding elections).

To the publication of the results, the President d' Israël gives the responsibility of form the new government with the member of the Parliament which is likely the most to be able to do it (normally the leader of the list having received the greatest number of votes). This one has then up to 42 days to negotiate a coalition with other parties and to present the new government to Knesset at the time of a vote of confidence which asks for a minimum of 61 supports out of 120 members of Parliament. The cabinet once confirmed by this vote, it becomes new the Prime Minister of Israel.

Political context

Anticipated elections

The decision to cause anticipated elections follows the election of Amir Peretz to the head of the members of the Labor Party then his immediate decision to withdraw its party of the coalition supporting the government. This coalition, carried out by the Likoud of Ariel Sharon and the preceding Labor leader Shimon Peres had made it possible the government to continue the application of the Disengagement plan of the occupied territories and to thus carry out the Israeli withdrawal of the Gaza Strip and some Israeli Colonies isolated from the north of the the West Bank, in spite of the opposition of part of religious Likoud and parties. The dissolution of the coalition also precipitated the departure of Ariel Sharon of Likoud and the creation of its own party with center vocation, Kadima.

Peretz had required of Sharon to choose a date for these anticipated elections, “ enters at the end of February and at the end of March, as soon as possible. ” Sharon also estimated that it was about the “ better thing for the country ” to hold of the elections as soon as possible, “ being given the collapse of the political coalition. ”

Geopolitical context

The elections proceeded in a geopolitical context marked by several elements:

the results of the Palestinian General elections of the January 25th 2006 changes radically the parameters of the israélo-Palestinian Peace process. The islamist movement Hamas is the large winner of these elections and indicates Ismaïl Haniyeh to form a new Palestinian cabinet in March 2006 whereas the countryside beats full sound in Israel.
the health condition of Ariel Sharon after her hospitalizations in December 2005 and January 2006 implies a new jolt in the Israeli political scene and the role of the new formation Kadima at the time of the elections. The news on the health condition of Sharon is relayed regularly, while it seems certain that this one will not in the future take again any more political responsibilities.
the threats which make weigh the nuclear program and they violent flame attacks of the president Iran IEN Mahmoud Ahmadinejad take part in the tension at the time of the election. During this time, the coalition carried out by the United States seems embourber in its war in Iraq.
This tension is already largely related on the Palestinian Terrorisme and the advertisement of the end of the " truce " in December 2005 by the islamist movements like the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Palestinian like by movements armed resulting from the Fatah like the Brigades with the Al-Aqsa martyrs.
Social situation of the Israelis. The indicators of poverty of the Israeli population are with the red and the gap between the incomes increased.
Sanitary situation: several hundreds of poultries are found died in the Kibboutz Ein Hashlosha, close to the Gaza Strip, in the Negev desert . The ministry for Agriculture confirms the March 17th the presence of the virus H5N1. Several people are hospitalized and make fear risks of contamination of the population. Other agricultural domains, in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, are touched in the following days.

Situation of the parties in the list

; Likoud Since the Israeli legislative Elections of 2003, Likoud directed by Ariel Sharon has a majority of 38 seats out of the 120 members of Parliament of the Knesset. The party suffered from internal divisions following the decision of Sharon to evacuate the Jewish populations established in the Gaza Strip. This division involved the departure of Ariel Sharon in November 2005 to form Kadima.

The December 19th 2005, Benjamin Netanyahou was elected official candidate at the conclusion of primary education elections of the party. Its number 2 is Silvan Shalom. Netanyahou is opposed to all new unilateral withdrawal Israelis, like the religious parties. However, the liberal policy which it followed within the Sharon government is reproached to him by the monks of the party Shass traditionally favorable to social measures and that could prevent a coalition with this party.

; Avoda Since the Israeli legislative Elections of 2003, the workers party which was then directed by Amram Mitzna has 19 seats. In January 2005, Shimon Peres made take part the party in the coalition of Sharon to allow the withdrawal of Gaza. The election of Amir Peretz changes gives it within the party. Also, the personality of Peretz, originating in Morocco, creates internal tensions with the traditional elite Ashkénaze of the party. The former leader, Shimon Peres, ended up leaving the formation to join the centrists of Kadima.

; Kadima The first surveys give this new party gaining to the elections of March 2006. However, the health condition and the age of Ariel Sharon make weigh fears within the public opinion which is questioned, according to the Israeli newspapers, on the reliability of a party built around a personality. Tzipi Livni, minister and member of Kadima, rejects the idea that the party would be only one very mixed group around Sharon. In the current of the month of February 2006, Ehoud Olmert is essential gradually like the heir to Ariel Sharon and succeeds in gathering the support of the other tenors of the party around his name top of the list. Shimon Peres is second on the list. Tzipi Livni, in third position, would occupy the post of Deputy Prime Minister in the event of Kadima government.

; Other parties

The election is generally perceived by the observers like a fight between 3 principal parties, great change in Israeli policy which is summarized traditionally, since the years 1970, with a Likoud-Avoda opposition.

The religious party Séfarade Shass of Eli Yishaï presents an independent list.

The primary educations of the party Shinouï (3rd formation of the country with 15 members of Parliament) indicated Ron Leventhal like number 2 of the party in the place of Avraham Poraz. This one leaves the formation and creates a new party, HeTS, involving with him the majority of the Shinouï members of Parliament. The leader of the party, Tomy Lapid, resigns of the party the January 25th 2006 to join HeTS, and leaves the direction of free Shinouï for Leventhal.

The January 30th 2006, the line coalition called " Halhud HaLeumi " (and gathering 3 right parties: Moledet, Tkuma and Tzionut HaDatit) subjects a joint list with the National Party Religious " Mafdal" and Binyamin Elon top of the list. They invite to refuse all new withdrawal of additional territories contrary to what is proposed by Ehoud Olmert and Kadima. The party Israel Beytenou mainly constant by the Russian immigrants preferred to leave the coalition of Halhud HaLeumi to propose a separate list.

The remainder of the other lists are presented under the labels:

plain Arab List,
Meretz - Yachad,
Ale Yarok,
Yahadut Hatorah, coalition between Agoudat Israel and Thaw HaTorah,
Gil (Israel).

Topics of the countryside

The israélo-Palestinian Conflict

The preceding Israeli legislative election was exploited, according to the political commentators, the topic of safety against the Palestinian rising of the the Second Intifada. This period was marked by more than one thousand of died on the Israeli side. The security policy of the Sharon government consisted mainly of frequent incursions in the West Bank and into the Gaza Strip and in the arrest of many Palestinian militants or their elimination by targeted attacks. In spite of the constant protests of certain groups of the Israeli left and Arab Israelis, this policy gathered a broad support in the Jewish population which always fears the Attack-suicides and them attacks by rocket fires, although these attacks decreased in 2005 then 2006. Same division was observed throughout the construction of the " Fence safety " who encroaches in the territory asserted by the majority of the Palestinians.

On the other hand, the Israeli withdrawal of the Gaza Strip caused another fracture between a pragmatic current incarnated by Ariel Sharon, supported on this occasion by the left, and a certain right-hand side which does not want " to reward the terrorisme" and which is pressed on the religious currents which always aspire to have the totality of the history Ground of Israel.

In this election, the right parties and center put forward the programs to continue to fight " against terrorism palestinien". The workers party also placed this fight like its first priority. The oppositions to the security policy are represented by the Arab parties and of the left parties like Meretz.

The solutions suggested with the conflict are different according to the parties:

Meretz supports bilateral negotiations like only way towards peace.
the workers party and Kadima express the wish to negotiate but the absence according to them of a Palestinian partner to negotiate peace (particularly after the victory of the Hamas to the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006) lead them to consider new unilateral withdrawals to draw the final borders of Israel by including there the large blocks of Jewish population in the east of Jerusalem.
the Likoud wishes an expansion of the Barrière of Israeli separation in order to include a greater proportion of the disputed territories and to control the valley of the the Jordan, Jerusalem and all the colonies of settlement.
National union (Israel) - Parti National Monk opposes any unilateral withdrawal and wishes more intensely to encourage the Jewish settlement of the West Bank.
Herout and other nationalist small groups support the massive transfer of the Israeli and Palestinian Arab population towards the close Arab countries in order to solve the conflict definitively. Certain differences exist between Herout which supports a " departure volontaire" Arabs against financial equalizations and the other movements which do not exclude from forced expulsions.
Israel Beytenou proposes to maintain control Israeli on the majority of the colonies of Jewish settlement and to yield in exchange certain Arab cities and certain uninhabited zones of the Israeli territory to the Palestinian Autorité.

The economic situation and social

Since the creation of Israel, the political scene was primarily dominated by the questions of peace and safety. The parties are mainly defined according to their approach with respect to the Israeli-Arab Conflit and of the israélo-Palestinian Conflit.

The elections of 2006 are marked by the fact that a major party (members of the Labor Party under the direction of Amir Peretz) place for the first time the economic questions and social at the top of its priorities. That includes a minimum wage increase, allowances of pensions to the workers. The Labor program very largely dissociates neoliberalism of the Likoud of Benjamin Netanyahou which, as a Minister for Finance of 2003 to 2005, sought to stimulate the nation's economy by lowering the loads with the detriment of the health system. This policy is feared by part of the traditional electorate of Likoud in the middle-classes. This argument is used by orthodoxe Shass which is posed in support poor classes of the Israeli company.

The question of Israel as a Jewish and democratic State

Relations between the State and the Judaism

Until 2003, religious Jewish parties took part in all the coalitions formed in Israel. The parties religious Zionists pushed to have a certain balance between the laic and religious points of view on the questions of education, of Casheroute, the observation of the Chabbat and the church wedding. In addition, the orthodoxe religious parties pushed to preserve the assistances being studied religious and the exemption with the military service for the students of the yeshivot (which had been decided in 1951 by David Ben Gourion).

These advantages for the monks are less and less well lived by the laic citizens who feel them like a burden for the company. It is by this phenomenon that much explained the rise of the Shinouï at the time of the elections of 2003. However, this party did not obtain significant change in this situation and left in 2005 the coalition joined together by Ariel Sharon, when this one allocated new assistances to an orthodoxe religious party.

Shinouï, HeTS (scission of Shinouï), Meretz, and Ale Yarok want to promote in their programs of the principles " laic and démocratiques" :

To allow the companies and public transport to function the Chabbat;
To institute a civil wedding (even a form of homosexual marriage) and to break the monopoly of the monks on the institutions of the marriage and the divorce;
To allow the public pigmeat sale, which prohibit the religious laws;
To engage the religious students in the military service of Tsahal.

The various religious parties like Shass and Mafdal oppose such reforms strictly and want to reinforce the Jewish character of the State.

Relations between Jews and Arabs

The Arab Israelis account for approximately 20% of the Israeli population. Although their situations economic and social are much more enviable than those of the Arabs of the occupied territories, they complain about discriminations which they undergo in the social institutions of the country, because of their Palestinian Arab ethnic identity sometimes in opposition with their Israeli citizenship within the framework of the conflict which opposes the two people.

The Arab parties Raam and Balad, to which the Israeli Communist party is added, want to fight against any form d'" inequality based on the ethnie" and to make country a democratic State binational.

The Jews of Israel see the inequalities which would exist in the country like the natural result of the concept of Jewish State. The Arabs do not have the same obligations to make their military service for example and are suspectés not to be interdependent of the other citizens vis-a-vis the Palestinian violent actions against Israel. Moreover, one Israeli Arab member of Parliament expressed himself with the Knesset to call with the destruction of the State of Israel. Others Arab Israelis were considered and condemned for their concrete support for terrorist attacks in the past. At the time of these elections, a chief candidate of the coalition of the Arab parties is an islamist which wishes " to apply the Charia ".

Certain parties of Israeli extreme-right-hand side as Herout support plans of transfer of the Israeli Arab populations towards other bank of the Jordan. Others as Israel Beytenou want to negotiate an exchange of territories between the blocks of colony which would return to Israel and the areas of the country mainly populated of Arab Israelis in order to reinforce the Jewish majority of Israel while creating a Palestinian Arab State.

Introduction of a civil wedding

The introduction of the civil wedding is a topic of countryside for several political parties. The stake is in particular the profit of the voices of the minority Russian speaker which is favorable there and which accounts for 20% of the Israeli population.

The religious parties oppose such a project which is supported by the parties " laïcs" and in particular the Shinouï.

Unfolding of the countryside

Declarations

During the electoral campaign, which accelerates at fifteen days of the poll, Ehoud Olmert, become Prime Minister by interim since the hospitalization of Ariel Sharon, and whose centrist party Kadima is given favorite, announces Thursday March 9th 2006, in an interview with the “ Jerusalem Post ”, which it hopes, if it gains the elections, to trace, if necessary unilaterally, the final borders of Israel from here 2010. It will proceed for that to the dismantling of news Jewish colonies in the West Bank. He wants to equip the Hebrew State with “permanent borders, by which we will separate completely from the majority of the population Palestinian and will not preserve an important and stable Jewish majority in Israel”.

Surveys

Mid-March, Kadima is given largely favorite by the surveys, projections allotting twice more seats to him than the Members of the Labor Party and Likoud.

The surveys of the beginning of March show that neither the Shinouï, nor HeTS could sufficient gather voice to have representatives with the Knesset.

On the other hand, the two lists Halhud HaLeumi/Left National Monk and Israel Beytenou seemed, according to the surveys of March 2006, being the victorious large futures (with Kadima) of the election to come.

Events marking the countryside

In February 2006, the Israeli government makes evacuate by the force the Israeli Colonie of Amona in the north of the the West Bank. It is the occasion of confrontations between the Israeli police force and demonstrators. Some see in this step, a sign on behalf of the leaders of Kadima in direction of the left and pragmatic who encouraged already the evacuation of the Gaza Strip realized earlier by Ariel Sharon.

In March 2006, in order to prevent the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, which threaten to release Ahmad Saadat, the assassin of the Israeli former minister Rehavam Zeevi, the government carried out by Ehoud Olmert launches an military operation against the prison of Jericho which is controlled completely by the Palestinians. That starts a series of removals in the Gaza Strip, aiming particularly Westerners.

According to the survey institutes, the image of Kadima and Ehoud Olmert leave reinforced this attack, while the Palestinian Authority is weakened. The surveys according to this event give 42 seats to Kadima against 16 with the Travaillistes and 15 with the Likoud. Tzipi Livni, near to Olmert, ensures that the attack was carried out “ without any consideration or electoral ulterior motive ”.

In the week preceding the poll, the surveys show a compressing of the voting intentions for Kadima, with the favor of the members of the Labor Party and Likoud, and also of Israel Beytenou of Avigdor Liberman.

The political agitation on the side of the Palestinian Autorité at the conclusion of the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006 also marks the Israeli countryside:

negotiations carried out by the Hamas, to compose a new Palestinian government with the various factions of the PLO whose Fatah, fail on the question of the recognition of historical agreements of the peace process by Hamas;
Three days before the poll in Israel, Mahmoud Abbas gives her green light for the nomination of a new government formed by Ismaël Haniyeh and including/understanding 25 ministers, all members of Hamas;
the day before poll, Ismaël Haniyeh makes a public speech for " to invite the Four-bit byte to dialog ". It rejects the unilateral retirement scheme suggested by certain Israeli parties.

Results

Final rate of participation with the Israeli poll is of 63,2%, according to the official persons in charge, that is to say the weaker second of the history of the country (after the Israeli election of the Prime Minister of 2001 for which 62,5% of the voters had been expressed).

To the exit of the ballot boxes, projections of the three principal chains of Israeli television largely at the head give to the party Kadima First outgoing minister Ehoud Olmert of the legislative , with 29 seats, a little less than is envisaged, on the 120 seats of the Knesset. The members of the Labor Party take down the second place with 20 seats, in third position the orthodoxe religious party Shass and the Likoud which seems the loser with 12 seats each one, comes after the party from Russian immigration Israel Beytenou which obtains 11 seats.

The official results are the following:

See the article List of the members of 17th Knesset, for the list of the new elected officials of Knesset.

Analyzes

At the conclusion of the elections, several conclusions seem divided by the whole of the observers:

the party Kadima did not obtain success as obvious as that announced by the surveys of before-poll;
the first two parties do not gather a sufficient number of members of Parliament to be able to form a bipolar coalition. They will have to compose with other minority parties;
the great historical formation of right-hand side, Likoud, crumbled and is not any more one of the three political main forces of the country at the conclusion of the poll;
the low participation rate and crumbling of the voices towards small parts, in particular new the " left reprocessed the " whose electorate is composed of young people with 50%;
the religious parties are maintained and will take part in the negotiations to form the future government coalition;
the parties " laïcs" the price of their divisions pays;
the success of the parties having given up “Large Israel” and proposing concessions with the Palestinians is obvious. Some see even in these results a plebiscite for the continuation of the application of a unilateral solution to the israélo-Palestinian Conflit;

See too

Wikipédia articles

Members of the 16 {{E}} Knesset outgoing
Palestinian legislative Elections of 2006

Wikinews articles

:Wikinews: Fr: The Iranian president proposes to move Israel in Europe
: Wikinews: Fr: Palestine: Hamas gains the elections. Ahmad Qorei resigns
: Wikinews: Fr: Israel prepares to turn a page
: Wikinews: Fr: Gaza Strip: removal of two Frenchwomen members of Doctors of the World

References

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