No, you are not about to read a story about the Mafia, Triads or Yakuza, but rather about the December 8 primaries in Israel’s Likud party.
I don’t know how it is when you go to vote in internal party elections in your part of the world, but here in Israel it is far from putting an ‘x’ against your preferred candidate’s name.
The problem starts with the fact that the parties select their candidates for election to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on a national list rather than in constituencies, or regional, votes. As you are well aware this columnist does not like that system because it means there is little or no accountability in Israeli politics. However, what you are about to read is arguably more serious than that.
Let us assume that the Likud is expected to gain 40 seats come January 28. There are at least 160 people competing for those places. Many of the 160 are so hell-bent on becoming Knesset members there is little they will not do in order to achieve that goal.
That is where the ‘dilim’ and ‘assassinations’ come in to play.
These are attempts by collectives to ensure their entire ticket gets the vote. For example, and this is purely theoretical, the Netanyahu camp in the Likud organizes ‘dilim,’ or deals. These would be agreements between the various backers of Netanyahu to organize themselves so they compete for specific seat numbers in the Knesset list and that they vote for each other in those positions and try to persuade their friends to do the same.
Then there are the assassinations. For example, and this is purely theoretical, the Sharon camp decides it does not want Yisrael Katz to be a Knesset member. Therefore the camp issues a directive to voters not to vote for Katz.
To my mind this sucks. Yes, Israel is a democracy, the only democracy in the region, but its political system, and especially its electoral system, is in definite need of reform.
Perhaps the next government will be able to arrange parliamentary ‘dilim’ that will mean the assassination of the current voting system and the establishment of accountability to the electorate.