Why I Dont Care To Vote
During the last election in America, I was in Israel, and being as I'm from Michigan, which is strongly democrat, and absentee ballots are only counted when its close to a tie, and also due to laziness, I didnt vote. So this coming up election could be my first time voting. Except there's no party I support.
The way the system is set up, you're only allowed one vote, and that vote isn't for a person, but for a party. Then the party that can make a coalition of 61 seats (out of 120) is the leading party, and their party leader is Prime Minister.
There are only three serious contendors for the throne-Sharon, Peretz, and Netanyahu.
Sharon's platform is "territorial concessions to maintain a Jewish majority". This is done by following the road map. I don't think he has anything else to his platform.
Peretz's platform is a strong welfare state, eradicating poverty. In order to accomplish these goals, we need to make a lasting peace with Palestinians. While I havent seen any specific terms of his, he is presumable willing to trade more than Sharon is.
Netanyahu's platform is taking power away from the unions, through free market capitalism. He is against giving away any lands without a popular vote to support it.
In a normal (American) system, if you agreed with one of these platforms, you would vote for that candidate. But here, by voting for that candidate, you're voting for the whole party. The more votes they get, the more seats they get. So a vote for Sharon is also a vote for Olmert, Peres, Reichman (co-founder of Shinui), and many others who all came from different parties and all have completely opposite views, and all are united for one reason only-they believe Sharon is going to win and they want good jobs. A vote for Netanyahu is also a vote Yisroel Katz, called the second most corrupt cabinet minister, and possibly for Feiglin, a man whose views Netanyahu is so against he is doing everything possible to block him from running.
Voting for a smaller party is a big risk. Each party has two goals. To stick with their ideology, and to be part of the majority coalition. Rarely can they do both. And there's the same problem, that even if you agree with the ideology of a party, you dont necessarily agree with the people that are representing it.
Gotta go eat, more on this later
The way the system is set up, you're only allowed one vote, and that vote isn't for a person, but for a party. Then the party that can make a coalition of 61 seats (out of 120) is the leading party, and their party leader is Prime Minister.
There are only three serious contendors for the throne-Sharon, Peretz, and Netanyahu.
Sharon's platform is "territorial concessions to maintain a Jewish majority". This is done by following the road map. I don't think he has anything else to his platform.
Peretz's platform is a strong welfare state, eradicating poverty. In order to accomplish these goals, we need to make a lasting peace with Palestinians. While I havent seen any specific terms of his, he is presumable willing to trade more than Sharon is.
Netanyahu's platform is taking power away from the unions, through free market capitalism. He is against giving away any lands without a popular vote to support it.
In a normal (American) system, if you agreed with one of these platforms, you would vote for that candidate. But here, by voting for that candidate, you're voting for the whole party. The more votes they get, the more seats they get. So a vote for Sharon is also a vote for Olmert, Peres, Reichman (co-founder of Shinui), and many others who all came from different parties and all have completely opposite views, and all are united for one reason only-they believe Sharon is going to win and they want good jobs. A vote for Netanyahu is also a vote Yisroel Katz, called the second most corrupt cabinet minister, and possibly for Feiglin, a man whose views Netanyahu is so against he is doing everything possible to block him from running.
Voting for a smaller party is a big risk. Each party has two goals. To stick with their ideology, and to be part of the majority coalition. Rarely can they do both. And there's the same problem, that even if you agree with the ideology of a party, you dont necessarily agree with the people that are representing it.
Gotta go eat, more on this later
posted by stillruleall at 6:53 PM
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