Elections In Israel

ELECTIONS IN ISRAEL .

The elections in this country, Israel, are based on the nationwide and the Israeli parliament, Knéset. (siempre espacio después de punto o coma)

The Knéset has 120 members elected every four years by a system of proportional representation on closed lists of political parties. The Israeli electoral system has a 2% electoral barrier, which favors small parties and avoids large majorities, so they need to form coalitions to govern.

For three times, the prime minister was elected by the electorate’s direct vote, not by the Knéset. Besides this, Israel also has a president, although this is just a symbolic figure who is elected by the parliament.

The last elections in Israel were in 2009, in order to select the members of the Knéset. They were initially planned for 2010, but the prime minister of that time, Kadima Ehud Ólmert, resigned, so it was necessary to do it earlier.

There main parties were Kadima, Likud, Israel Beytenu and Israeli Labor.

The winning party was Kadima, with 23% of the votes. The second one was really close to the winner, with the 21% of the votes.

The difficulties of the coalition government led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce the advancement of parliamentary elections for the first months of 2013. On a speech on television, he announced the next elections, but he did not say the exact date.

The parties will be the same than in the 2009 elections. Kadimais the party with most members, it was created by Ariel Sharon in 2005. This party is between Israel Labor Party and Likud. Likud, on the other hand, is a historic conservative party to which he belonged before creating Kadima Sharon and now form a coalition government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.

The other political parties represented in Parliament are the ultra-Orthodox Jews (National Union, National Religious Party and Yahadut Ha-Torah), the Social Democrats, the radical leftist Hadash, and the Arab-Israeli parties (Balad and United Arab List).

And there are many other parties which did not enter in the Knéset.

We will see what happens in 2013.

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