Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman announced his opposition to an initiative by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to lower the minimum threshold for entering Knesset. His opposition is joined by Shas Chairman Minister of Interior Aryeh Deri.
Litzman was responding to news reports that the Prime Minister is moving to facilitate the move. The previous Knesset increased the minimum percentage of votes one requires to enter Knesset from 2% to 3.35%, which today translates to almost four seats, which in reality is four seats. If a party running for Knesset fails to earn 3.35% of the vote, the votes are lost and the party does not enter Knesset.
Litzman fears if the minimum threshold is lowered, there will be more splits from parties as people are aware they require fewer votes to get into Knesset, permitting them to go on their own, resulting in too many small parties.
Despite optimistic reports from recent polls regarding elections, with showing Likud would earn 42 votes with PM Netanyahu leading the party, he would have a difficult time building his coalition if Shas and Yachad for example do not cross the current minimum threshold, which many polls indicate will be the case. If this were to occur, PM Netanyahu would have a difficult time building a coalition without Yesh Atid as he would likely prefer, even if he receives 42 seats as the last poll reported to be the case. This is why he is initiating the change to make it easier for a party to get into Knesset.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
How about for the System of Israel should finally be changed to where 1/2,3/4, or the whole Knesset [1/2-as in Germany,or the whole -as in the UK and Commonwealths] , be divided into Constituencies
It would surely be a social and political gamechanger, and for one ,MKs would be of necessity responsive to their public..
Correction: The threshold is 3.25%, not 3.35%.
But well done saying that it translates to almost 4 seats and not exactly 4 seats; not everybody catches that.
As for whether Netanyahu will have difficulty putting together a coalition if Shas and Yachad fall below the threshold: this isn’t true at all. If Shas falls below the threshold, half of the seats it would’ve gotten will end up in the hands of right-wing parties anyway. He’ll have a coalition of 65 seats instead of 67, but he’ll need to negotiate with one less coalition partner to get there, so why is that bad for him? (It might be bad for Shas, of course…)