The ruling party, Kadima, held elections yesterday to replace scandal ridden Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Only 74, 000 people out of a population of 7 million were eligble to vote. In order to vote this election, you need to join the party and pay a fee, sort of like a poll tax. America abolished the poll tax years ago because it was discriminatory.
The winner, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, received 16, 936 votes ( 43.1% of the total). To put it in perspective, more people are going to the Paul McCartney concert. She bested her opponent by only 431 votes.
Tzipi Livni has 42 days to form a government or there will be elections. I like Tzipi Livni. For democracy’s sake I hope that she can not form a government. I do not want a prime minister that has only be voted into office by 16,000 people. Maybe it is the American in me, but I can get used to the British style of democracy.
By their inherent nature, democracies are messy. I do not mean to pick on Israel. I am also not so proud of the United States’ record of democracy. Our last President was crowned by the Supreme Court with some of the justices having been chosen by his father. This kind of interconnectiveness are traits most often shown by a monarchy. Basically, there is something wrong with a democracy where I have to learn the word chad.
September 18, 2008 at 7:37 am
Nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future.
September 23, 2008 at 6:32 pm
As I Brit, I disagree. Blair was replaced by Brown thorugh an internal election – and both are unpopular. Bush won his first election due to some hundreds of missng votes in Florida.
People in Israel forget that democracy is not perfect. each variant has good and weak sides. The election of Livni, assuming it stands the test of legal challenges, is as good as any way to vote a replacement for Olmert.
Otherwise, we will be having a general election every 6 months