Photo Credit: Ronen Zvulun/AP
In 2009, Benyamin Netanyahu regained the Israeli Prime Ministry, a position he had held previously from 1996–99. His party, Likud, took 27 seats out of the Knesset’s 120. Kadima, a centrist party started by Ariel Sharon, had won 28 seats, but Israeli President Shimon Peres determined that Likud stood the greatest chance to form a coalition and permitted Netanyahu to build the government.
Peres, 90, is about to finish his presidential term. The office is more ceremonial than powerful, but Peres, immensely popular abroad, has helped lead and guide the country throughout his tenure as president. Elections for the next president have been held up due to Netanyahu’s apparent distaste for the perceived frontrunner, former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin. Rivlin is a member of Netanyahu’s own party.
In an effort to prevent Rivlin from becoming Israel’s next president, Netanyahu has postponed elections, worked to subvert the process and is apparently attempting to do away with the position altogether. According to Haaretz, he is working with allies now to
Appoint a committee that will examine ways to nullify the presidency by changing the rules – either establishing a presidential regime (with a wink toward [Avigdor] Lieberman), or determining that the head of the largest party after the election automatically forms the next government, with no need for a mandate from the president.
The role of the president in Israeli elections is to review the election and determine who is in the best position to create a majority coalition. Netanyahu is concerned about the math in the next election and is therefore unprepared to have a rival involved in his own electoral process. To protect his own career, he is attempting to do away with a beloved and diplomatically important role that has been a part of Israeli society since the creation of the state.
He is being accused of “running amok,” of being “crazed,” and of acting like “a raging bull that sees nothing but the red cape whirling and provoking him.” He is concerning himself more with his political future than with what is good for the government or the people of Israel.
But the most absurd part about the entire story is that under the rule that he is now advocating — the party who wins the most seats build the coalition — he would never have reclaimed the prime ministership back in 2009! Had this rule been in place, Israel would have seen their second female prime minister in Tzipi Livni, and Netanyahu would have ended up with a strong ministry to coax him into the coalition or he would have been the head of the opposition.
This is a case of a leader using their elected power in order to retain their elected power. It sounds very much like something that Netanyahu, not to mention anyone else who believes in democracy, would typically take umbrage at.
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