Israeli election thread

[germanos]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Ouch... what a dissapointment for Bibi (not that I'm complaining). Pretty good result for the peace process, IMO.

[Jon Miller]

who are the pensioners?

JM

[KrazyHorse]

socialists

[Eli]

Update:

Kadima seems to be losing even more seats. Updated polls place it in the 29-31 range. There's not going to be a stable coalition.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Eli
Update:

Kadima seems to be losing even more seats. Updated polls place it in the 29-31 range. There's not going to be a stable coalition.

1. it will be more stable than any coalition Likud can form.

2. Is it better to get 30 mks for a controversial platform, or 40 mks for an unclear platform? Which is more stable?

3. Pensioners - these are all natural Labour voters, right? Who wouldnt vote for Peretz. That cant be good for Peretz, can it? Can he hold on? Is Labour really so happy with 21 MKs?


I dont know. Some folks expected Kadima to fall apart as soon as Sharon was gone. Instead it will lead the govt. Ok so its not as dominant as it might have been.


I dont see Kadima as a one time phenomemon. This is basically the same phenomenon thats been playing out since the days of the first intifada - the Israeli center, which really doesnt trust the Palestinians much, but also doesnt see "Greater Israel" as a viable alternative. Theyve been looking for someone to follow for a long time - Rabin, Bibi when he kinda looked moderate, Barak, and then Sharon. Now they have Olmert. whatever happens to Olmert or Kadima, I dont see any party that either seems to trusting of the Pals, or that advocates Greater Israel, becoming dominant.

[Sirotnikov]

Elections Poll Summary:

Out of 120 seats:

Kadima: 30 seats
Labor: 21 seats
Israel Our Home: 13 seats
Shas: 12 seats
Likud: 10 seats
National Union – NRP: 9 seats
United Torah Judaism: 6 seats
Pensioners' party: 7 seats
Meretz: 5 seats
Arab parties: 7 seats


Meaning:
Next government will likely be formed of center-left leaning parties, and religious parties:

Kadima + Labor + Pensioners + Meretz + Shas + United Torah

However - Kadima will own less than half the mandates of its future coalition. Meaning the govt. will be VERY unstable and depend basically on money pouring to the religious parties, and to all kinds of ****ty initiatives set out by lefty parties.

Also Labor will come very close and will have to recieve major concessions in form of economical policy and ministry positions.

This means that all the growth begun by careful spending reduction and reform done by Nethanyahu will be erased.

However, there is likelyhood of economic growth as a result of a projected increased sense of normality and security, as Israel attempts to set out more permanent borders, and will likely attract western support and money, while pulling out army and taking apart outposts in the West Bank.

[muxec]

Kadima 28, Avoda 20, Shas 13


F.

[Vince278]

So basically nobody has even a quarter of the vote? This reminds me of my earlier post about what if a government could not be formed.

[Eli]

Results after 99% of the votes were counted:

Kadima - 28.
Labor - 20.
Shas - 13.
Israel Beytenu - 12.
Likud - 11.
National Union - 9.
Pensioners - 7.
United Tora Judaism - 6.
Meretz - 4.
Arabs - 3+4+3=10.

What we have is a very dissapointing result for Kadima, a pretty good one for Labor, and total crash for the Likud.
It's interesting that Liberman didnt get to be the third largest after all, Shas got a surprisingly large result(the polls were predicting 10-11 for them) and Liberman was supposed to get 14.

Of all the rest, Meretz got hit pretty heavily. 4 seats is not much even for them, and a total of 10 for the Arabs is also pretty suprising. They were expected to get something like 8.

[Eli]

This hitkansut thingie is a disaster. First, because the radical groups among the settlers learned their lesson. In the next round, they wont be crying, they will be shooting. Case in point, Amona.

And the second reason is that we have Katyushas falling on Ashkelon. The media made a nice job of playing it down during election day but when the next one hits it will be major headlines.

[VetLegion]

What is it with bloody pensioners' parties popping up everywhere? We have one here and when it made it into parliament I was thinking it was a local exception. It's pretty depressing seing they're also active in other countries. Soon we'll all be ruled by pensioners

[Kassiopeia]

I noticed the pensioner's party too. That's really unprecedented in the Western world, I'd say, usually these movements end up as a fizzle when the results come in. The Finnish equivalent netted maybe a tenth of a percent in the previous parliamentary election - my assumption is that this is because older people keep voting for the parties they have voted before, and are not interested in these special interest parties.

So basically nobody has even a quarter of the vote? This reminds me of my earlier post about what if a government could not be formed.

Multi-party proportional representation in action.

[Last Conformist]

Likud got slaughtered ... I suppose it's time for Bibi to find a new job.

I'm not familiar with these Yisrael Beitenu (or however you spell it) folks; my newspaper describe them as "ultra-right", which sounds rather sinister. Someone give a quick rundown?

[Eli]

They're the secular far right. Most of their votes came from ex-Soviet Union immigrants. They are far right, but not fanatics, more of the familiar secular nationalist type.

[Last Conformist]

In other words, the sort of people that would provoke laments about the imminence of death camps if they got 5% here.