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| Prime Minister Naftali Bennett |
After over half a century in Israel, I have a pretty good idea how the political system works. I don't think it's like many others. I'm going to try to simplify it here, aiming to say how it's run in positive rather than negative sentences/points. I will try to use easy to understand terminology.
- The Israeli Political System is a parliamentary democracy.
- The Israeli Political System has only proportional representation.
- Israeli citizens vote for political parties*.
- The 120 Knesset seats are proportionately divided among the political parties that received a legally set percentage of the votes and more.
- After votes are fully counted, the political parties negotiate a coalition government, because no single party has ever gotten a majority of the Knesset seats.
- The Prime Minister is chosen/voted in by the majority of Knesset Members who generally are in the political parties that have joined the coalition.
- Coalition negotiations decide which participating political parties get which ministries, committee chairmanships and other important positions.
- When a government falls and new elections are called, the sitting government continues until after a new coalition is voted in.**
*Each political party has a numbered list of candidates who become MKs according to election results.
**That interim government cannot be voted out. Netanyahu had spent the last few years as interim Prime Minister, perfectly safe from losing his position as long as no new coalition run by another party could be formed.
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| Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett |
I hope that this explanation is clear. If you have any questions, please write in the comments.
This isn't the place/post to complain that YOU think it's a dumb system. The purpose of this post is just to explain the existing Israeli Political System.