Since its establishment, The State of Israel is experiencing a dynamic and reliable democracy; most probably the best functioning one in the Middle East and as all other functioning democracies in the world, the democracy itself faces inevitable challenges. This article's aim is to examine this democracy through the electoral system of the State of Israel, analyze the effects on the stability in politics and compare it with the electoral system of Turkey- which in fact, is one of the two persistent democracies in the Middle East and which was able to secure an explicit stability over the last two elections- and apply a new electoral system that will try to balance, adequate representation and stable governance in both countries.
In one of his conferences, a famous Israeli writer stated that, "
There are many different reasons for the instability of a simple government. Economic policies, political ideologies, diplomatic reasons or wars, internal conflicts within the government members and also as
How Electoral System Works in Israel
Electoral system in
After the members of Knesset are declared, the President approaches the leader of the party -generally who has the largest number of votes- with the task to form a government within the Knesset. The government acts as the executive mechanism of the state. If the formed government fails, the President may approach any MK to give the task to form a new government or may recommend for early elections. Also the Knesset may decide for an in-confidence vote and call for early elections.
Two Percent Threshold
The electoral system of Israel is one of the most democratic systems ever seen. With the low threshold level, the system allows even the smallest groups to be represented in the Knesset. Until 1988, the threshold was %1 and during the 16th Knesset (2003) the threshold was changed from 1.5% to 2%. The reason for changing the threshold was to prevent extremist minorities from being represented in the Knesset.
If we compare with other counties,
| Party | Votes | % Total Votes | % Votes over Threshold (2%) | Seats | |
| Kadima | 690,095 | 21.99% | 23.37% | 29 | |
| Labour | 472,746 | 15.06% | 16.01% | 20 | |
| Shas | 299,130 | 9.53% | 10.13% | 12 | |
| Likud | 282,070 | 8.99% | 9.55% | 12 | |
| | 281,850 | 8.98% | 9.54% | 11 | |
| NU/NRP | 223,838 | 7.13% | 7.58% | 9 | |
| Gil(Pensioners) | 185,790 | 5.92% | 6.29% | 7 | |
| Total Over Threshold | | | | | |
| Hypothetical | 2,435,519 | 77.60% | 82.47% | 100 | |
| Threshold (5%) | | | | | |
| Torah Judaism | 146,958 | 4.68% | 4.98% | 6 | |
| Meretz | 118,356 | 3.77% | 4.01% | 5 | |
| United Arab List | 94,460 | 3.01% | 3.20% | 3 | |
| Hadash | 85,830 | 2.73% | 2.91% | 3 | |
| Balad | 72,013 | 2.29% | 2.44% | 3 | |
| Total Over Threshold | | | | | |
| 2,953,136 | 94.10% | 100.00% | 120 | ||
| | | | | ||
| Table 1 |
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In 2006 the coalition was formed by Ehud Olmert and consisted of 4 different parties (Kadima, Labour, Shas, Gil). If we consider a hypothetical threshold of 5% as seen in Table 1, then there would be 7 parties in the Knesset and when the 20 seats are distributed among the 7, three parties would be enough to have the majority but; 12.4% of the national vote would not be represented in the Knesset while another coalition government would have to be formed. With the actual threshold of 2%, 5.9% of the national vote was not represented in the Knesset and the overrepresentation percentage for Kadima was nearly 2.17%. After the government was formed, the main opposition Likud was weak, left with 12 seats especially after Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of Israel Beitanu, joined the government 6 months after the elections.
In the last elections the coalition was formed with 4 parties which hold a reasonable number of seats in the Knesset. This might be explained by the separation of Kadima from Likud as the split caused a certain division of right wing votes. After the "disengagement" and especially stroke of Ariel Sharon, none of the parties were able to have an explicit dominance in the elections. But it is an irrefutable fact that, mostly leading parties form the coalitions with parties holding small number of seats just to gain the majority which in fact causes the small parties to control budgets of different ministries and in that sense creating more crises and struggles within the government and more expense to deal with these crises. Over the six decades the governments were mostly formed in this way and because of the division of the votes it's been difficult to experience a stable government, nor a powerful opposition.
Nationwide Elections and Accountability
Another fact about the electoral system is that a party based system is used in elections. The public votes for a single party list and not for the specific representative. This situation creates a gap between the voter and the representative which decreases his/her chance to be re-elected again; also creating a lack of accountability for the minister for a specific district. As the candidates are not representing a simple district, the voters do not know a specific name of the individual candidate that is going to represent them.
Governance and Stability in Israeli Politics
As mentioned before, no party has ever obtained the absolute majority in the Knesset, in this sense; within seventeen Knessets, 31 different governments were formed. Out of these 31 governments only two of them were able to complete the 4 years term (Golda Meir 1969-1974 and Menachem Begin 1977-1981). Some government even had a very short lifespan (1974-Golda Meir; 3 months, 1955-Moshe Sharett; 4 months…).
There might be different reasons for the reformation of any government, especially if the state is located in an area that carries quite a lot of tension. In
In every election, newly formed parties come on stage hoping to get enough votes to enter the Knesset. If we examine the last three elections (1999-2003-2006) we can see that an average of 29 parties ran for the parliament and the people saw more that 50 different parties in the last ten years. 18 of these parties made their way to the Knesset at least after one of the elections and there is an average of 14 parties gaining seat in the last three elections.
Parallel to rise of the number of different party members within the government and the Knesset, the number of the bills that are proposed in the legislative process increased too, which adds another burden for economy and relatively more effort for the government and the Knesset.
The 31 coalitions were formed by a minimum of three parties. In the 30th government of Ariel Sharon there were members of 9 different parties in 2 years period (It was not a coalition of 9 parties). As more parties join together to gain the majority, the number of ministries are increasing and small party members start to control the ministries and their budgets.
With over 30 ministries and acting deputy ministries, more than one fourth of the Knesset is a part of the executive branch which also means there is no certain separation between the legislative and executive branches as the average lifespan of a minister is 12 months. In the last 12 years, the state had eight foreign ministers, eight ministers of defense; ten ministers of finance, ten ministers of justice and twelve ministers of tourism. In coalitions that consist of main parties that hold an important number of seats (ex; 31st government: Kadima 29, Labor 19, Shas 12 and Gil 7 seats), senior ministers of Finance, Defense and Foreign Affairs often come up to be Prime Minister's political rivals. In this sense the Prime minister faces immediate coalition crises and no-confidence votes. Instead of other things, the Prime Minister spends a remarkable amount of time for the government's survival.
The continuous instability causes government to design short termed and more populist policies. It's seen as a risk to carry out long term plans and projects. The government relatively fails to implement projects, which requires long term planning and also fails to finalize already started projects by former governments. This leads to a failure in improvement of the public sector as well as failure in more important issues such as overall economy or the state security.
Statistics by 2005 World Economic Forum showed that the state has one of the weakest governmental systems among the developed countries. In the statistics Israel was ranked 8th out of 30 developed countries in private business sector while was ranked 29th out of 30 in public sector. The private sector has a positive influence on the prosperity and growth of the state while the public sector is evidently slowing the development. The gap between the two sectors is the largest among other developed countries in spite of the fact that the public sector still dominates over 45% of the state's GDP, most of the researchers, academicians, politicians and public agree that the main problem is the difficulties in governance.
Another Democracy in the Middle East
Through its politic existence, the State of Israel mainly intends to keep the balance on the fair democracy side and if we scan through the history, not very favorable steps were taken to change or improve the system. Another accurately working democracy, Turkey, has experienced different electoral systems since its establishment in 1923, trying to find a balance between adequate representation and stability. As every other democracy, Turkey faces different problems in different periods. The Republic of Turkey has witnessed 3 different constitutions (1921, 1961, and 1982), 3 coups (1960, 1971 and 1980) and a military intervention (1997) all of which created fluctuations in the politics. Among these fluctuations, some different electoral systems were used in
How System Works in Republic of Turkey
The 550 members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) are elected by a proportional representation system. The general elections for the parliament are held every 4 years, unless the Assembly decides to renew the elections before 4 years time or the President of the state decides for an early election. Every city is accepted as a different district in the electoral system but it is clearly remarked that, the elected candidate does not represent the district or the electorate that cast votes for him/her, but represents the whole nation.
To be able to enter the parliament each party has to get at least 10% of the national votes as well as a calculated percentage of the votes in the electoral district. The independent candidates only have to receive the calculated percentage of votes in the district to secure their seats in the parliament.
Different Electoral Systems and Stability
The article 67/6 of the Turkish constitution remarks that, the election laws are prepared to associate and balance the principles of adequate representation and stability in governance. Although the expression is fairly new in the constitution, many different electoral systems were used after changing to a multi-party system and the election results started to be published to the open public after 1950. In the elections of 1950, 1954 and 1957, in which the majoritarian representation system was used, a clear stability of governance was created which in fact caused the Democrat Party (DP) to have a predominant influence on the Assembly over the opposition, Republican People's Party (CHP) as seen in Table 2.
| | Votes DP (%) | Votes CHP (%) | Number of Representatives DP | Number of Representatives CHP | |
| 1950 | 52.7 | 39.4 | 420 | 63 | |
| 1954 | 57.5 | 35.29 | 502 | 31 | |
| 1957 | 47.91 | 41.12 | 424 | 178 | |
| Table 2 |
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The long term lasting imbalance between the government and the opposition and also the certain dominance of DP over the Assembly created a situation that eventually lead to economical crises, disorder in the state, the first armed forces' intervention to the democracy and in the end the execution of the leader of DP, Adnan Menderes.
After the coup, proportional representation, using the D'Hondt method for vote surplus was applied in the elections. We can see that in the period 1961-1980, the Republic experienced a fairly adequate representation in democracy. In the elections of 1965 the overrepresentation percentage was nearly 0.4% with the lowest level in Turkish democratic history. The average of overrepresentation percentage between 1961-1983, was 5.26% in within five parliaments. In the period, when no threshold levels were applied, between 1961 and1980; there were three coalition and two single-party governments. After the single-party governments in 1965 and 1969, the leading parties in the parliament were unable to form stable governments in the elections of 1973 and 1977. The political stability was affected by the formation of one coalition after another which increased the small parties' or groups' influence on government policy. This period of instability lead to the greatest chaos situation that the republic ever witnessed.
Ten Percent Threshold
After another armed forces intervention and a military regime, the 10% threshold was applied for the first time in 1983 elections. Besides the 10%, a provincial threshold was also applied in the elections till 1995 elections. The main purpose of the threshold was to keep the minorities that were believed to have intentions to damage the unity of the Republic, away from the parliament and also to keep votes on a few main parties. Today some politicians believe that the high level of threshold is certain a necessity for the stability. In the last seven elections that the threshold was applied, four of the seven governments were formed by a single party. We can see stable governments in 1983, 1987 elections after military regime period and in 2002, 2007 elections after the economic crises in 2001. The governments formed in 1991, 1995 and 1999 were coalitions.
| | First Party | Vote (%) | Representation (%) | Overrepresentation (%) | Non Represented Vote (%) | Government Type | |
| 1983 | ANAP | 45.1 | 53.0 | 7.9 | - | Single Party | |
| 1987 | ANAP | 36.3 | 64.9 | 28.6 | 19.4 | Single Party | |
| 1991 | DYP | 27.0 | 39.5 | 12.5 | 0.4 | Coalition | |
| 1995 | RP | 21.4 | 28.7 | 7.3 | 14.0 | Coalition | |
| 1999 | DSP | 22.2 | 24.7 | 2.5 | 18.3 | Coalition | |
| 2002 | AKP | 34.3 | 66.0 | 31.7 | 45.3 | Single Party | |
| 2007 | AKP | 46,5 | 62.0 | 15.5 | 13.0 | Single Party | |
| Table 3 |
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Another other side of the picture is that the threshold directly increased the number of national votes that are not represented in the parliament; in nearly every election it was applied. And the high price that is endured in the name of political stability is not enough every time for a permanent stability. Only four of the governments in the last seven elections were formed by a single party. In the elections held in 2002, the votes that are not represented in the Assembly rose to a level of 45.3%, creating political upheaval.
In Table 3 we can see the last 7 elections and the effect of the threshold in representation. The average of non-represented vote percentage is 15.77% in the elections that the threshold was applied. Between 1950 and 1983, in eight elections the average of non-represented vote was less than 0.3%. The average overrepresentation within seven parliaments rose to a number of 15.14%. The average number of different parties in the last seven elections is 3.7 while this number was 6.2 in 1961-1980 period.
'Justice and Development' Stability
In 2002 only two parties Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Republican People's Party (CHP) were able to get the minimum vote level. More than 14 million votes were not represented (45.3%). Although AKP only had about 34% of the national votes, it had an absolute majority of 66% in the Assembly with 363 seats, an overrepresentation of nearly 32% which brought forth the 3rd largest overrepresentation percentage in Turkish politics. The first two were in 1954 and 1950, the elections that 'majority representation' system was applied. Since the elections in 1954, it was the first time that only two parties were represented in parliament.
In the elections 2007, besides the two parties AKP and CHP, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) was also able to enter the parliament. The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) candidates ran as independent candidates in their districts and were able to receive 22 seats in the parliament. Also 13 members of CHP joined the first party of the 1999 elections, Democratic Left Party (DSP) and so did represent the party. The non represented votes in the last elections were about 4.5 million increasing the percentage of votes for all parties that entered the parliament (more than 12% for AKP). It is clear that AKP, CHP and MHP shared the votes of the other leading parties, after their defeat in 2002 elections. A common view in the media was that, the public voted for these parties, considering that the party they support would not be able to pass the threshold level. Another reason for increasing votes is that before the 2007 elections 'stability in politics' was emphasized during the election campaign by AKP. The same propaganda was used by Turgut Ozal, the leader of Motherland Party (ANAP), before the elections in 1987.
The 1999 earthquake and devaluation of 2001 followed by an economic crisis pulled the county through a deep depression period. Many things have changed since AKP came to power. The economy got over the recession period and was able to stabilize a growth percentage. The country that is used to living in hyperinflationary periods, experienced inflation less than 10% and many steps were taken on the path of integration to the European Union. But this stability and high dominance of the party over the Assembly also lead to democratic problems which turned out to be interpreted as serious threats for the secular constitution of the country. Tayyip Erdogan is known to have a conservative Islamic background, but the populist AK Party ideology never contained bitter Islamic attitudes. Mainly, with the absolute majority in the parliament, the government was able to appoint the new chairman of Higher Educational Organization (YOK), select the President of the State among the Party members after the elections in the Assembly and propose a change in the constitution about the turban prohibition in the public buildings and universities. After many discussions about the government policy, first warning came from the armed forces claiming the acts of the government are against the secularity of the state and the principles of Ataturk, the great founder of the Republic of Turkey. In 2008 Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the chief prosecutor, asked the judges to declare that the party is "a centre of anti-secular activity" that is undermining the constitution and must be closed down. He also wanted the judges to ban President Abdullah Gul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, and 69 other party officials from party activity for five years. The decision taken in the constitutional court was that "certain acts of the party were against secularism", but the party was not closed down as required number of seven votes was not reached. Six votes were in favor of party being closed down.
The stability of six years and the effect of a weak opposition had brought the country to the edge of another democratic crisis.
Total Representation as a Solution
Different democracies throughout the world are experimenting different changes especially with the electoral systems in order to overcome the problems of every simple democracy. David Ben Gurion attempted quite many times to change the Israeli electoral system. Some steps were taken towards improving the system like applying the threshold or prime minister elections but these steps were not enough to stabilize the government, in fact the threshold even created a level of non-presented vote and overrepresentation in the Knesset. Also
Total Representation (TR) is a system propounded by Aharon Nathan, which ensures every single vote to be represented in and also giving a chance to parties to attain a majority in the parliament. The basis of the system relies on the combination of proportional representation (PR) and first-past-the-post system. Another important fact about the TR is it creates a direct link between the electorate and the representative in the parliament.
TR system requires the parliament to consist of two different classes of members (MPs). The first class members are the Constituency MPs (CMPs) who would be elected within specific district by the simple majority system. The candidate who gets the most votes would secure his/her seat in the parliament. The second class, Parts MPs (PMPs) would be elected by pooling all votes of the unsuccessful candidates and dividing them proportionally between the parties. In that case as a single party may gather a majority in the parliament with the CMPs, while other parties or small groups always hold a possibility of a second chance or be represented in the parliament.
If all the parties would announce their CMP lists before the elections the voters would know the specific candidate that they vote for their district as well as they will know the their future PMPs. In this context, the each candidate would have to spend a remarkable effort for every single vote in their districts. Also after the election, in order to be re-elected, the member of parliaments would have to keep the effort, showing more accountability for their electorate.
The CMP votes would have to be counted only once not to cause the Arab or religious minorities have an advantage for their concentration in some specific districts.
The ratio between the CMPs and PMPs is the determinative fact for the balance of representation and stability. For example if we take the ratio as one (CMPs and PMPs equal), this might not be enough for a single party to ensure a majority of the seats in the parliament and the instability would remain. This ratio should be decided upon considering the state's diplomatic structure and political aspects. The quantity of the CMPs will determine the strength of the leading party. Also a definite percentage of the PMPs will guarantee a stronger opposition while letting many other small groups and minorities to be represented.
Applying TR to Israeli System
The ratio of CMKs over PMKs is a considerable fact for the balance between stability and representation. In today's Knesset if the number of 120 members is preserved, 90 of the members might be entitled as CMKs and the other 30 as PMKs. Or a ratio of 80:40 would respond to the needs of the Knesset. As the number of PMKs increase, the effect electoral reform gets meaningless as the system relapses into the Proportional Representation system. The system can also be easily revised for a higher number of MKs.
The country should be divided into 90 constituencies as every CMK would be elected from a specific district. Deciding on the constituencies is one of the most sensitive facts about the system. So division should be decided with carefully and objectively. The division might be decided over regional or geographical features and by people with reputation and integrity, such as senior judges or academicians.
CMKs would be elected directly. A candidate who gets the highest number of votes in a specific area would secure his/her seat in the Knesset. On the same ballot cast for the CMKs, the voter would also be electing the PMKs by pooling the unsuccessful candidates' votes and dividing them proportionally; very similar to the system that is used in today's Israeli elections.
With this system, the greatest deficiency of PR system that is faced in Israel is avoided, as the system creates a direct link between the electorate and the MKs, thus creating more accountability for voters in a specific area. The candidates would have to act carefully to in order to get the support of the electorate and obtain the votes in the specific district. With main parties having a big share of the CMKs, there are much more possibilities for gaining the majority and forming relatively more stable government while a chance is given to the minorities to have a voice.
Applying TR to Turkish System
One of the leading problems of the Turkish electoral system is also the disconnection between the electorate and the candidate. Although the ministers are elected from different districts, the public votes for a single party and generally they don't know the specific candidate who is going to represent them in the parliament, especially in big cities where the public comes across a very long list of candidates. Another fact about the electoral system is that, most of the people do not cast their votes in favor of their favorite party, as they believe that their party would not be able to pass the threshold level. Instead the people choose to vote for the party that has a similar identity to their party.
Prof. Dr. Seyfettin Gursel from Galatasaray University had suggested a combined system, very similar to TR. In his system 293 ministers would be elected from the constituencies with a two staged election like the CMPs, the other 253 would be elected with PR with a lower level of threshold. If we try to apply TR to the Turkish electoral system, the CMP and PMP ratio should be decided first. In Prof. Dr. Gursel's model, he describes the model's principal aim towards stability is to unite different parties with similar ideologies before the elections which may end up to be a majority in the Assembly which in fact might not be enough for a lasting stability.
A ratio of 450:100 or 400:150 would be enough for a sufficient system. This can be designed considering the necessary number of votes to pass a law, so that the majority party would not be able to change the constitution without a common consensus. Also the number of the total seats in the parliament might be increased, for more adequate representation.
The simple TR system should be used to elect the CMPs and PMPs. The 450 CMPs of the parliament will ensure a majority in the Assembly and also probably a main opposition. Even if all the 450 seats are received by a single party which might be possible, the 100 PMPs will guarantee an opposition and adequate representation.
The cities also should be divided with boundaries into constituencies equal to the number of the CMPs. This division is extremely important as it's well known that in some areas, minorities hold the vast majority of population. With the First-Past-the-Post system, the minorities would be guaranteeing a number of seats in the parliament. In fact as they would be elected from certain areas that they hold the majority, this would not give these minorities the chance to gain more seats after the pooling of the unsuccessful votes. In this case minorities such as the Kurds would be represented in the parliament through a democratic path. We have witnessed that the 10% threshold in the last elections was not enough to prevent the Kurdish representatives enter the parliament as the candidates did choose to run as independents from specific districts.
The high level of 10% threshold -which is a matter of discussion in the Turkish politics and which is expressed as a disgrace of such democracy- would not be essential as the number of 450 CMPs would be enough to gain majority. Even if there is not a clear majority, the leading party would be able to form a coalition with a party that fundamentally has a similar identity. In that case a more stable government can be expected. Blocking the threshold would not cause the extremist groups to enter the parliament as TR system carries a natural blocking mechanism in itself. Suppose the number of the PMPs is 100; then every party needs at least 1% of the unsuccessful votes to receive 1 seat.
Another fact about the constituencies is that if the division is to be based on the population, the electorate population should be considered, instead of the main population to ensure adequate representation. This will also prevent minorities to gain more seats through the pooling votes.
Conclusion
The electoral systems' aim is to find and maintain the balance between adequate representation and stability in governance. These two concepts lead to a direct contradiction. In the existing systems that the two countries have, when either of the concepts becomes more important, the other is always pushed back. Neither of the countries did manage to keep a permanent stability and adequate representation at the same time. Both countries struggle political and economic problems and frequent wars or military conflicts. The fact of stability is away from both countries as their geopolitical locations in Middle East. But also many people in both countries believe that the electoral system is their main problem.
The Israeli democracy has long suffered from inconsistency within governments or the Knesset as the diversities were not to create a harmony. In spite of David Ben Gurion's attempts to change the dysfunctional electoral system, and many more efforts to support the stability, no party had ever gained majority in the Israeli parliament. The system in Israel had been appropriate for a full representation of public until the certain number of percentage was applied, creating an amount of non-represented vote. The increased threshold level of 2% was not enough to form a more stable government; in fact we can see that in the last elections, even using a threshold level of 5% would not be enough to form a government with less than 3 parties while creating a non-represented vote percentage of 12%. Mainly the system was not appropriate to create stability.
A greater amount of Israeli public realized that, patching the system is not the proper way to find a balance between representation and stability; a structural change is needed. In 2007 Ehud Olmert and Avigdor Lieberman proposed a bill to make a change in the method of government, and in 2008 April, 4 ministers from the government and Likud, tabled a bill to change the electoral system in Israel and the draft of the system was very similar to TR with some modifications, mainly following the President's Commission's Final Report which was presented in 2006.
For Turkey; the country has been through diverse political periods. The Republic witnessed from the most repressive governmental system to the most just one. In the last 30 years the electoral system changed in the direction of unjust representation, as a 10% threshold level was applied in the electoral system, which brought forth huge numbers of non-representation. Besides, the threshold was neither able to establish a certain stability, nor keep the minorities away from the parliament. At the times when stability was ensured, the period usually ended up with political upheavals, economic crises or simply chaos; due to the lack of democracy and over dominance of the executive branches.
Total Representation may appropriately be adjusted; to cover both countries' governmental deficiencies for the system combines two different systems (PR and majority rule) as ensuring a majority while allowing every single vote to be represented. The system also increases accountability for public as it creates a direct link between the electorate and the representatives.
The results of elections, of course, do not depend only on the electoral systems. They depend on many facts as political diversity and aspects, propaganda, state of mind and foreign affairs. But with a proper functioning electoral system will eventually lead to a proper functioning governmental and political system which in fact is one of the priority needs of any state.
Research at Citizens' Empowerment Centre in Israel (CECI)
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-"Voting Percentages in Past Elections" http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections16/eng/about/percent_votes_eng.htm
-"Yeni Seçim Yasasına Ihtiyaç Var mı?" (Is a New Electoral System Needed?) Ntvmsnbc - 26 April, 2002
-Ziv HELLMAN "Does it Work: An Analysis of the Pros and Cons of the Israeli Parliamentary System" CECI - July 25, 2004
-Ziv HELLMAN "How the Israeli Electoral System Works" CECI – July 25, 2004
