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Jan 14, 2014
ELECTIONS-GOOD FOR BUSINESS, GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY
A guest post by Dr. Harold Goldmeier
ELECTIONS-GOOD FOR BUSINESS, GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY
Bet
Shemesh residents are greeting the unprecedented Jerusalem District Court
ruling ordering new elections with grumbling and folderol.
There
was massive and systematic fraud in last October’s election of Haredi Bet
Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbol according to the Court. His campaign is
applying for permission to appeal. Five judges will hear arguments.
If they rule Abutbol can appeal the Court will decide in days. If defeated a
government Minister can order new elections immediately.
In
the interim, Bet Shemesh government rumbles on by inertia. City
Council committees are frozen. New appointments, municipal projects, and
construction plan approvals, are on hold. Streets are cleaned and garbage
collected, sans much management control.
Residents
ought not despair. Elections are good for business and for democracy.
Several
hundred stolen election ballots and voting with fake i.d.’s described as
massive and systematic fraud is risible compared to shenanigans elsewhere. I
remember one Chicago mayor pulling the operating license of a day care center
where an opposing candidate’s wife worked; restaurants targeted for health
inspections after hosting campaign parties for opponents, or the tale of the
mayor refusing to submit election results in a timely way until he was sure he
knew the number of votes needed to elect his favorite for President of the
United States. The only community to report later was a leper colony in Hawaii.
In my career, three Illinois Governors went to jail where two remain until
today.
Eli
Cohen forged a coalition of religious and secular supporters to battle Abutbol
and his religious right cohorts. The election became entangled in a web of
passion and loathing, desperate appeals and self-deluding simplicities. Cohen
will have a harder time winning a new election. If he does win, Cohen will
likely be the last non-Haredi Mayor of Bet Shemesh for the foreseeable future.
The
community is increasingly Haredi and Hasidic with whom Abutbol’s strength lies.
Edas Haredit, Ger, Belz, Satmar and Neturei Karta Haredim dominate the Ramat
Bet Shemesh Bet neighborhood. Thousands of new dwellings under construction
attract these groups, while only hundreds of new units are designated for
secular and modern-Orthodox families. During the first election campaign a
Haredi national leader allegedly told a Cohen volunteer Haredim hope to turn
Bet Shemesh into another political stronghold modeling Bnei Brak and Betar
Illit. The former is one of the poorest most densely populated cities in Israel
dependent on annual subsidies from the Interior Ministry in the millions of
shekels. The latter boasts a 65% unemployment rate among working age
men. At some point officials will need an economic plan to keep Bet Shemesh
sustainable.
Concomitantly,
secular and modern-Orthodox residents are leaving Bet Shemesh or trickling into
the city. The increasingly stringent demands of Haredim spark tensions between
differing streams of Judaism they are unwilling to tolerate. My
modern-Orthodox, national service participating nieces own three apartments in
Bet Shemesh, but live elsewhere.
There
were some 40,000 votes cast in the last Bet Shemesh
election. Extrapolating from the election for Knesset last year, an
election costs government and candidates about NIS50 per vote. The
money is spent on campaign paraphernalia, glossy brochures and signs, manning
and setting up voting booths, feeding volunteers, cleanup, and more. Election
spending pours NIS2,000,000 into the local economy. Candidates spent
hundreds of thousands shekels in a first round campaign to designate two
finalists. Another NIS200,000 or more was spent between the two finalists for
office. Contributions from national parties controlled by MKs Deri and Bennett
added to local spending and economic dissilience.
Printers,
sign makers, advertising agencies, restaurants, and caterers, street sweepers and
garbage men, campaign workers, police overtime, and other “little people”
financially benefited. Local people prosper from local
elections, but so does democracy.
One
study out of the Cato Institute concludes “spending increases public
knowledge of the candidates, across essentially all groups in the
population. Less spending on campaigns is not likely to increase
public trust, involvement, or attention.” Democracies strengthen in proportion
to campaign spending.
A pessimist might agree with Mark Twain’s delightful observation that “If
voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” More
realistically is the caveat that “Bad officials are elected by good
citizens who do not vote.” The Cato report concludes, “Campaign
spending benefits democracy,” and apparently the local economy. The
re-election of a mayor might be a chore, but residents ought not shilly-shally
on election day.
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For you Star Trek fans out there!
ReplyDeleteRule of Acquisition 34: War is good for business.
Rule of Acquisition 35: Peace is good for business.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Rules_of_Acquisition
It would be far more helpful if you wouldn't repeat lies in your post.
ReplyDeleteThe court found no evidence of stolen ballots or fake ID's.
The entire issue revolves around a small number of votes cast willingly and knowingly on behalf of others, and whether simply the possibility of wider illegalities invalidates the election.