The destructive nature of elections

This elections is a perfect example of how destructive elections can be to a society. Instead of each party showing what they can do better, most of the discourse is based on attacks and negative , argumentative, speeches.

There is very little positive in this current election cycle.

Perhaps the greatest example of this can be seen when looking at Shas and UTJ. Funnily enough, in the general press one hardly hears anything from UTJ, and they have barely even started any public campaign, yet they and Shas have found numerous opportunities to bitterly fight with each other.

UTJ and Shas have worked together very nicely for a very long time. Even though they do not work out a block to run together as one party, they have had a very close working relationship. They are well-coordinated with each other, usually in elections as well but especially after the elections.

Yet now they are fighting. Fighting over ovters. While UTJ generally sticks to its natural voter base, this time they have agressively campaigned to people outside their natural base - those who are thought to be in Shas's natural base. For example, Gafni and his people have been going to the towns on the periphery - normally considered Deri and Shas's home court.

It has already led to a few verbal spats. Deri accused Gafni of stealing his voters. Gafni said UTJ helps all these people and communities and they are naturally turning to people and communities they have helped and asking for their vote. And vice versa.

The latest is Gafni commenting in a UTJ meeting abotu Shas's claim of having created a "revolution" in the peripheral towns. Gafni says "what revolution? maybe they created a revolution in the jails".Gafni was commenting on the fact that he went to a community and Shas had no presence there yet everyone says Shas turned things around.

Deri responded, after Gafni apologized, by saying Gafni was his assistant in southern Israel, and basically said Gafni is lying and knows very well about Shas's revolution.

The Yachad party is another sore point. UTJ has not been clear on its position on Yachad, even though they have clearly supported Shas. If this fighting continues, and if Yachad is deemed stable in its expectation to pass the electoral threshold, I can envision a scenario in which UTJ also supports Yachad, and further upsets Deri.

bkitzur, my point is, these two parties that until now have worked closely together, are now fighting.

The question is if their coming campaign of daas torah, that always happens at the last minute before elections, will resolve all this. Also, will they be able to work together afterwards, if they create all this bad blood now?

This is a great example of how divisive this election season has been. Even two parties that are really natural partners and have worked as partners for so long are now fighting with each other.

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