Transportation Minister Meirav Michaeli is likely the most dominant, centrist party, and as we will immediately see, forceful chairperson the Labor Party has ever seen since the late Shimon Peres. Her internal moves to fortify her control of the party's institutions lead to one inevitable conclusion: Michaeli is on the path to turning Labor into Yesh Atid and herself into that party's leader Yair Lapid. Ever since entering the role of party chairwoman, Michaeli has gradually neutered the veteran party's institutions on her path to turning it into a shallow organizational shell reminiscent of the unrealistic dummy conference that will manage the upcoming elections for the role of chairperson – "open" elections Yesh Atid-style: reminiscent of what we would see in North Korea, where an appointed committee votes in unison for the election of one single candidate, the supreme leader, and with a standing ovation from the audience.
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This is in all likelihood a carefully planned move and one that involves three lines of action. In the first stage, Michaeli turned Labor into a niche political party – one that is left-wing and Meretz compatible and ceded dialogue with the periphery and the wider public. The few remaining Labor party outposts in the country's north and south have been neutralized. Michaeli's blatant and progressive agenda that now characterizes the entire Labor party was bolstered in the party's internal elections for its Knesset list. These were carried out mainly through technological means and with the dramatic reduction of the number of physical ballot boxes in what in retrospect appears to have been intentional voter oppression among entire sectors of the public who simply abstained from taking part in the democratic game. At the same time, in an unusual move, it was possible to apply as a Labor candidate without a qualification period. The result in practice was that members of Israel's periphery, including from Arab villages and cities in the South and in the North, did not vote in significant numbers and the election resulted in a Knesset list befitting both the spirit and character of the Tel Aviv audience Michaeli had targeted.
At the same time as she is crafting the party in her image, Michaeli has tried to appoint her close associates to oversight and arbitration institutions within the party. These are the bodies that provide the checks and balances, reigning in and overseeing party leadership. Close associates, both male and female, of Michaeli were either appointed or nearly appointed to such critical associations: One of her sisters was on the path to the party's court and another sister was on the path to its finance committee. This was blocked, apparently, thanks to an expose by the Walla! news site. Other close associates of Michaeli's, however, were appointed to influential positions. For example, her former campaign manager Michal Gera Margaliot, was appointed six months ago to the party's arbitration apparatus. And there are other examples. These sorts of bodies conduct discussions into petitions and complaints, and their decisions have dramatic consequences. The result is that Michaeli's representatives are spread out across the party's judicial and constitutional bodies while veteran members - their predecessors - have been dropped. The highlight of Michaeli's plan, however, is the takeover of the party caucus, a body of around 3,000 functionaries, a majority of whom are appointed by the party's branches and others appointed by a committee controlled by the party chair. This is the party's most important body, which has the ability to authorize amendments to the party constitution and the party regulations. At one time, Michaeli advanced a policy of gender equality, and when this was adopted by her party, Michaeli could demand and receive the addition of 300 new female caucus members.
Even after this additional 10%, Michaeli still does not have the majority she needs for various moves she could lead that will fortify her control of the party and neutralize, in effect, its institutions and the party's secretary-general, a role some say Michaeli is interested in canceling outright. That is why the party chairwoman is now working to add another 600 functionaries to the caucus, in other words, the addition of another 20% of her choosing to the party's most significant democratic body, in such a way that will guarantee her a majority.
The proposed addition reveals Michaeli's true intentions: She is now establishing a special team to examine the structure of the party's institutions. This team is expected to submit its recommendations, and then, with the biased majority she may be trying to establish for herself in the caucus, Michaeli will be able to ensure the team's recommendations are "democratically" accepted. In some places, such actions would be referred to as underhanded opportunism.
The move will not only allow Michaeli to take complete control of Labor, but it could also threaten internal party democracy in a movement that could until recently, have prided itself on a glorious tradition of national participation and strong institutions. This is very bad news for Labor party supporters and members, some of whom are not entirely aware of the reform that will soon transform their party into an organizational carbon copy of Yesh Atid. Mainly, though, it is bad news for democratic culture in Israel.
Members of the so-called "change" coalition government do not cease to talk about "rescuing democracy" from the threat of the centrist populism they detected under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet unlike the Likud, their parties do not even have the appearance of internal democracy: Yesh Atid, Blue and White, New Hope, Yisrael Beytenu, and Yamina are all one-leader parties. They do not have sufficient democratic institutions, they do not have sufficient procedures for running for office and climbing the ranks, and they do not have enough oversight bodies that balance their leaders' power. The leader chooses and controls the party list. Their lawmakers are completely dependent upon them, party officials are subordinate to them, and there is no room for open and free internal partisan discourse. There isn't even a Haredi-style supreme rabbinical council. There is just one leader and their court of advisors.
On a deeper level, this means that these parties are insufficiently engaged with their supporters and wide swathes of the public. On an even deeper, and to my mind more important, level, there is no in-depth party dialogue. We have deteriorated to a point where all of Israel's current leadership avenues lack sufficient democratic infrastructure, and this will very soon be Labor's fate under Michaeli's leadership.
This is, in a nutshell, is the influence of Yesh Atid's political doctrine on Israeli democracy: parties based on one leader and without sufficient democratic infrastructure that serve as a means to promote a new brand of politician, who is by definition more antidemocratic than Netanyahu could ever dream of being. The populist Lapidism of Yesh Atid could eradicate the democratic spirit of the centrist and left-wing parties, and that is the greyest cloud hanging over Israel's stately skies right now.
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