I personally think the entire position, and thereby the election for it, should be canceled. As long as it is not, I don't support any candidate, though not because I am protesting the position but because we common-folk don't get to vote anybody. It is a vote only for MKs, and they don't vote based on qualifications, but on political deals.
Regardless of that, I don't like the way this goes down. Someone does not like one of the leading candidates, so an investigation is opened. Maybe he did what he is accused of, and maybe he did not. We won't know until much later, but in the meantime his candidacy is killed.
If whomever gave the police the information has been sitting on it for years, the police should not act on it until after the elections. The police should not be the ones to decide who has the right to run and who does not. If he would have already been under an ongoing investigation, that would be a different story - if he was under investigation and chose to run anyway, he would have taken the risk of the investigation going any which way..
but to open an investigation just a few days before the election? That is just not right.
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Not to mention that I fail to see the justification for the MKs voting in a secret ballot - after all, their right to vote is based on their being representatives of the PEOPLE, so maybe those people should know how they voted....
ReplyDeleteI agree, except for the fact that our system does not work with any form of direct representation, no no specific MK or party represents you, and no specific MK or party represents me, so there is no way to hold anybody accountable for their vote, so there is no point in making it public :-)
DeleteThat's a different problem - but at least we should know how everyone voted. Or do you think that all of the votes of the MKs should be secret... :-)
Deleteif the vote was public, chances are the party chairman would simply demand that the MKs vote according to the party line.
DeleteGreat - so then if they voted in a bum we could vote against that party next time.
DeleteWhat's so scary here is that the police don't even feel any compunction in starting such an obviously politically-motivated investigation - IMHO there should be an investigation of the police after the elections for the president.
ReplyDeletein this case, you'd have to investigate the AG since he enabled the investigation. and of course, if he chose not to allow the investigation and fuad was elected, he would have been accused of interfering with the election as well.
Deleteno win situation.
Why politically motivated? We also whine that the police and AG are coming from left-wing angles and here they are removing a leading left-wing candidate. Unless, the police and the AG are also in with the Haredim to do hafuch al hafcuh and vote in Rivlin because 'everyone' knows that Bibi wants him to lose.
ReplyDeleteThe requirements of the position definitely need to be changed or otherwise abolished. It is really a posh position for an ex-MK voted in by fellow office workers (the Knesset is actually where they work). I'd be surprised to dee Dorner or Shachtman win.