Interior Minister Arye Deri's idea of holding a direct run-off election for the prime minsitership between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz to rescue the political system from its current entanglement was praised on Tuesday by former Justice Minister and New Right leader Ayelet Shaked, Likud faction leader Miki Zohar, and Labor chairman Amir Peretz.
The Knesset passed a law to hold direct elections for the prime minister in 1992 after Shimon Peres' "dirty trick" of 1990, which led to anti-corruption demonstrations.
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The authors of that bill, then-MKs Professor Amnon Rubinstein, Professor David Lavie, Uriel Lin, and Yehoash Tzidon, enlisted the majority required to pass it, despite opposition from then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and most of his cabinet. One of the few right-wing MKs to support the bill, even breaking coalition discipline to vote in favor of it, was Benjamin Netanyahu. The law had the public cast two ballots – one for prime minister, and a second for their preferred party. It was implemented in three elections – 1996, when Netanyahu beat Peres and became prime minister for the first time; in 1999, when Ehud Barak beat Netanyahu; and in 2001, when Ariel Sharon defeated Barak.
The 2001 election, which was held for prime minister only, without the public voting for any parties, was similar to what Deri wants to happen now. The government then found itself engulfed in a major crisis. Barak joining the Camp David summit in 2000 led to the National Religious Party and Yisrael Be'Aliyah leaving the coalition. Later, Shas followed. After the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah turned up the heat and three IDF soldiers were abducted on Mount Dov. A few months later, the Second Intifada erupted, with riots on the Temple Mount. In November 2000, a few laws to dissolve the Knesset were passed in preliminary readings. In December, Barak resigned, which meant an automatic election for a new prime minister but no Knesset elections. The Likud tried to confince Netanyahu – who had left the Knesset in 1999 after his loss to Barak – to run again, but that idea encountered difficulties because it would have needed a special law (according to Israeli statute, the candidate for prime minister must be a sitting Knesset member.)
Netanyahu, who wanted to hold elections for the Knesset, as well as for prime minister, because he wanted to increase representation for the Likud – which only had 19 seats – withdrew his candidacy at the last minute. When the election was held, Sharon beat Barark, winning 62.4% of the vote. The voter turnout was only 60%, one of the lowest Israel had ever seen. A few days after he was elected prime minister, Sharon presented the Knesset with a law to cancel the direct election of the prime minister, which passed by a large majority of 72:37.
The current version of the Basic law: The Government still includes a few clauses that appeared in the law that instituted direct elections for the prime minister, such as the need to file a "constructive" vote of no-confidence in order to bring down the government; limits to the number of ministers and deputy ministers; a requirement that coalition agreements must be made public; and the right of 40 MKs to summon the prime minister for a special discussion.
To move forward with Deri's proposal, a special law would have to be enacted that would serve as an amendment to the Basic Law: The Government. The amendment would declare that in certain circumstances, it is possible to hold an election for the prime minister without holding a Knesset election. A law like that would pass in the Knesset easily, assuming that all 55 MKs from the right-wing bloc support it as well as Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party.
Gideon Allon is the author of "Direct Election," published in Hebrew in 1995.
