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2009 Israeli legislative election

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Elections for the 18th Knesset were held in Israel on 10 February 2009. These elections became necessary due to the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as leader of the Kadima party, and the failure of his successor, Tzipi Livni, to form a coalition government. Had Olmert remained in office or had Livni formed a coalition government, the elections would have been scheduled for 2010 instead.

Background

On 17 September 2008, Kadima held a leadership election, which was won by Tzipi Livni. Following Livni's victory, former party leader Ehud Olmert (who did not run in the contest) resigned as Prime Minister. Livni was given six weeks to form a coalition, but set a deadline of 26 October for parties to agree to join the new government.

Although the Labor Party agreed to join, current coalition members Shas rejected the opportunity, with Livni claiming that they had made "economically and diplomatically illegitimate" demands (which included increasing child benefits and rejecting the possible division of Jerusalem in a deal with the Palestinians). It was reported that Shas had rejected almost one billion shekels in child allowances offered to them as part of the coalition negotiations. Gil and United Torah Judaism had both rejected offers to join, whilst negotiations with Meretz-Yachad were still ongoing. On 26 October, Livni recommended to President Shimon Peres that early elections be held.

President Peres had three days to consult on the recommendation, after which there was a period of three weeks in which other Knesset members could have offered to form an alternative coalition, but no such alternative was brought

The election would have to be held within 90 days after the end of that period. Although Kadima submitted a bill to the Knesset on 27 October to call early elections and bypass the three week period, Peres's announcement to the Knesset that there was no chance of forming a government meant that the full waiting period stood. Ehud Olmert was to remain the caretaker Prime Minister until a new government was formed after the elections.

The early elections have called into question the future of the Israel–Palestinian peace talks. The new Obama administration says the United States will pursue peace no matter who wins the elections.

The traditional distinction between the Israeli left and the right has been blurred, with both the voters and the main candidates gravitating toward the center. Israelis, who have always been highly politicized, are switching affiliations more easily. On the Palestinian front, stark differences among the parties still remain. Kadima is committed to continuing talks for a two-state solution. Labor does not believe that bilateral Israeli–Palestinian negotiations can succeed under the current circumstances and says it advocates a more comprehensive, regional approach to peace. Likud says it will promote an "economic peace" with the Palestinians and also hold political negotiations, although it is not clear about what.

Procedures

Main article: Elections in Israel

Elections to the Knesset allocate 120 seats by party-list proportional representation, using the d'Hondt method. The election threshold for the 2006 election was set at 2% (up from 1.5% in previous elections), which is a little over two seats.

After official results are published, the President of Israel delegates the task of forming a government to the Member of Knesset with the best chance of assembling a majority coalition (usually the leader of the largest party.) That designee has up to 42 days to negotiate with the different parties, and then present his government to the Knesset for a vote of confidence. Once the government is approved (by a vote of at least 61 members), he/she becomes Prime Minister.

Parties

By 23 December, a record 43 parties had registered with the parties registrar, compared to 31 for the 2006 elections, although in the end, only 34 parties submitted a list of candidates and only 33 ran on election day. On 12 January 2009, Balad and the United Arab List–Ta'al alliance were disqualified by the Central Elections Committee on the grounds that they failed to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and called for armed conflict against it. Balad and Ta'al were also disqualified from the 2003 election, but won a Supreme Court case which allowed them to run. On 21 January 2009, the Supreme Court again revoked the ban.

Alliances

The Labor–Meimad alliance, in existence since 1999, was ended prior to the elections. Labor ran on its own, whilst Meimad ran a joint list with the new Green Movement.

Meretz and Tnu'a HaHadasha, a new movement of left-wing activists led by Tzali Reshef, ran a joint list, with Tnua'a HaHadasha representatives getting third, seventh and eleventh spots on the alliance's list.

The anti-West Bank barrier movement Tarabut has merged into Hadash.

The religious Zionist Ahi party, previously part of the National Union alliance, merged into Likud in late December 2008. Ultra-orthodox parties Agudat Israel and Degel HaTorah agreed to continue their alliance, United Torah Judaism, for the election.

New parties

Several political parties have been established since the 2006 elections. The first was Social Justice, founded by billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak in February 2007 (which in the end did not run in the election), whilst Yisrael Hazaka was established by the former Labor member of the Knesset, Efraim Sneh in May 2008.

After the announcement of elections in late October 2008, the Tkuma and Moledet factions of the National Union and the National Religious Party merged into a single party in early November 2008, which was later named The Jewish Home. However, the National Union was re-established after the Moledet and Tkuma factions broke away from the party and agreed an alliance with Hatikva headed by Aryeh Eldad and Eretz Yisrael Shelanu (Our Land of Israel) headed by Rabbi Sholom Dov Wolpo and Baruch Marzel.

MK Abbas Zakour left the United Arab List to establish the Arab Centre Party in early December 2008. However, he later joined the Balad list.

List of participating parties

Pre-election opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the Israeli legislative election, 2009
Source Party
Kadima Labor Party Shas Likud Yisrael Beiteinu Jewish Home National Union Gil United Torah Judaism Meretz United Arab List–Ta'al Hadash Balad The Greens
17th Knesset 29 19 12 12 11 9 7 6 5 4 3 3 0
Dahaf
27 Oct 		29 11 11 26 9 7 2 7 6 10 2
Teleseker
27 Oct 		31 11 8 29 11 7 0 4 5 11 3
Gal Hadash
30 Oct 		30 13 10 31 8 6 0 5 5 10 2
Gal Hadash
13 Nov 		28 11 10 33 7 6 0 5 7 10 3
Dialog
20 Nov 		28 10 10 34 10 4 0 6 7 11 0
Dahaf
20 Nov 		26 8 11 32 9 6 0 7 7 11 3
Shvakim Panorama
15 Dec 		20 14 12 34 11 4 0 7 6 9 0
Teleseker
19 Dec 		30 12 9 30 12 5 0 5 7 10 0
Dialog
25 Dec 		26 11 13 30 11 6 2 5 8 3 3 2 –
Dialog
31 Dec 		27 16 9 32 11 3 – 5 7 4 4 2 –
Reshet Bet
15 Jan 		21 15 10 28 15 3 3 0 7 5 4 3 3 3
Panels
22 Jan 		24 15 10 30 15 2 4 – 5 6 4 3 2 –
Dialog
29 Jan 		25 14 10 28 15 3 4 2 5 5 4 3 2 –
Midgam
3 Feb 		23 17 10 28 18 4 3 – 5 4 2 4 2 –
Teleseker
4 Feb 		23 17 10 27 17 3 4 – 5 6 4 4 0 –
Shvakim Panorama
5 Feb 		21 16 11 25 16 4 4 2 7 5 3 4 2 –
Panels
5 Feb 		25 14 10 26 18 3 4 – 5 6 3 4 2 –
Dahaf
6 Feb 		23 16 10 25 19 3 4 – 6 5 4 3 2 –
Dialog
6 Feb 		25 14 9 27 18 2 4 – 6 7 3 3 2 –

Results

Preliminary exit polls

Source Party
Kadima Labor Party Shas Likud Yisrael Beiteinu Jewish Home National Union Gil United Torah Judaism Meretz United Arab List–Ta'al Hadash Balad
17th Knesset 29 19 12 12 11 9 7 6 5 4 3 3
Channel 1 30 13 9 28 14 4 3 - 5 5 2 4 3
Channel 2 29 13 10 27 15 4 3 - 5 4 3 4 3
Channel 10 30 13 9 28 15 3 3 - 5 4 4 4 2
Ynet 28 14 10 26 16 4 3 - 6 4 4 5 0

Final, unofficial results

At present (2009-02-12), the Knesset Board of Elections states on their site that results are "final but not official."

Party Votes Absentee
ballots*		 Seats Change
Kadima 758,032 39,003 28 −1
Likud 729,054 46,405 27 +15
Yisrael Beiteinu 394,577 24,524 15 +4
Labor Party 334,900 20,709 13 −6
Shas 286,300 13,786 11 −1
United Torah Judaism 147,954 5,399 5 −1
United Arab List-Ta'al 113,954 1,391 4 ±0
National Union 112,570 7,942 4 — **
Hadash 112,130 1,739 4 +1
New Movement-Meretz 99,611 5,980 3 −2
The Jewish Home 96,765 6,479 3 — ***
Balad 83,739 984 3 ±0
Electoral threshold: 67,470 No seats awarded if < 2%
Spoilt vote 43,097
Green Movement-Meimad 27,737 2,236
Gil 17,571 587 0 −7
Ale Yarok 13,132 2,526
The Greens 12,378 1,843
Yisrael Hazaka 6,722 366
Tzabar 4,752 909
Koah LeHashpi'a 3,696 301
Da'am 2,645 113
Yisrael HaMithadeshet 2,572 65
Holocaust survivors & Ale Yarok Alumni 2,346 465
Leader 1,887 82
Tzomet 1,520 108
Koah HaKesef 1,008 70
Man's Rights in the Family 921 74
HaYisraelim 856 54
Or 815 63
Ahrayut 802 57
Brit Olam 678 50
Lev LaOlim 632 17
Lazuz 623 42
Lehem 611 22
Source:

* Absentee ballots are votes not cast directly but placed in a double envelope with identifying information and counted directly by the elections committee, so to allow voting independent of location and to insure no double voting takes place. Eligible to vote by double envelopes: soldiers, prisoners, sailors, overseas diplomats, disabled persons and hospitalized people.

** The four parties making up National Union had six seats in the previous elections in the combined National Union/National Religious Party slate. The Ahi party (2 seats) left the National Union and joined the Likud.

*** The Jewish Home (formerly the National Religious Party) had three seats in the combined National Union/National Religious Party slate. The two parties together won 7 seats in this election for a net loss of −2.

Coalition process

The result of the vote was that Kadima had the most seats, followed by Likud, followed by Yisrael Beiteinu.

On 20 February the President Shimon Peres announced that Benjamin Netanyahu would be given the task of forming a government. This is the first time in which the President had not appointed the head of the largest party for this task, although there had already been several cases in which the Prime Minister was not the head of the largest party. Such a case occured in the 1996 elections, when Netanyahu himself was elected Prime Minister by direct vote although his Likud Party won less seats than Shimon Peres' Labor party. Peres' motivation in nominating Netanyahu, was likely based upon the judgement that Netanyahu was numerically in a better position to put together a coalition. Likud's potential partners on the political right won more seats than the parties of the centre-left, who would more likely support Kadima.

References

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