Alarmed By Israelis' Dejection, Sa'ar Calls For Direct Elections

Greer Fay Cashman
THE JERUSALEM POST
Aug. 3, 2009

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar has called for a change in the electoral system to ensure that legislators are accountable to the voters rather than to a rabbi or a party leader.

Sa'ar said that he was disturbed by certain contradictory findings in the 2009 Israel Democracy Index that was officially presented to President Shimon Peres on Monday.

A conference organized in the capital by the Israel Democracy Institute to discuss the index included a panel discussion in which Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky was scheduled to participate in view of the fact that a large section of the document was devoted to the attitudes of and toward immigrants from the former Soviet Union, marking the 20th anniversary of the large wave of Soviet aliya. However, Sharansky bowed out at the last moment. An IDI spokesman was unable to supply a reason for the cancellation, but a spokesman for the Jewish Agency told The Jerusalem Post that Sharansky had been unwell in recent weeks.

Sa'ar's call for electoral reform stemmed from indicators that while many veteran Israelis and immigrants are proud to be Israelis and are interested in its politics, most of the people polled did not think they had any influence on decisions that might directly affect the future of the country, and this in turn accounted for an ongoing decline in voter turn-out.

"If this situation persists, we will continue to witness a decline in the democratic process," said Sa'ar.

Israel is indirectly democratic and not fully democratic due to the fact that there are no direct elections, he added. "We do not vote for direct representatives but for parties. A large percentage of MKs are not elected but appointed, and there's a big difference between a legislator who was elected and one that was appointed."

Many MKs feel no obligation to the public, and are accountable only to the people who appointed them, said Sa'ar. "Democracy is not just a technical process. There have to be direct elections in which every member of the public can vote for his or her representative."

Sa'ar presented three options for choosing lawmakers: A combination of regional and individual representatives; open primaries like in some US states, where anyone could vote to choose a party's candidates; and something like in Denmark, where party members rank the primary candidates in order when they vote.
(Full article)
Related: Shelanu: Direct Representation for Israel
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