Liberman said he is going to pursue passage of a law that would prevent the Opposition from bringing about the collapse of the government unless they can garner the support of 90 MKs during the first two years of the coalition's term. The other, less crazy even if debatable, parts of his proposal are that there would be term limits on the Prime Minister (two terms), and someone indicted for a crime cannot run for Prime Minister or President.
90 MKs to bring down a government? The government cannot be brought down within the first two years of serving (unless 90 MKs vote against it)??
This is almost anti-democratic. This is a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. I am all in favor of electoral reform and think we desperately need it along with reform in how the government functions, but we should not be reforming the system with individual changes that a few people (or one person) think will be better for them. If you are going to reform the system, go ahead and reform it entirely and properly.
And Liberman should be aware that even if he thinks such a law would help him now, it could turn around and bite him later. At the end of the day, a large part of the problems with the electoral and governmental systems is that they never really incorporated long term thinking and planning. Everyone just makes changes that they think will help them.
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The country should be divided into first past the post districts per 100 k population
ReplyDeleteWould be roughly 92 MK responsible each to their own public. Experience elsewhere that they coalesce into two or three party blocs
The remainder will be elected at- large
It will be reassessed every decade as for population change
Big concern inevitably becomes who divides the districts and who will be in charge of avoiding too much blatant gerrymandering
There are some other concerns as well, but been suggesting the previous and similar for many years
95 MKs
Delete80 could be fine enough
gerrymandering is always a problem. it would have to be some independent committee deciding such things, but there are always biases, or at least accusations of bias
DeleteIn addition, the at - large MKs could have it enacted they alone go to election at the end of every two years
ReplyDeletegranting a regular safety valve for public electoral discontent and/or feedback without bringing down most of the government.