Note to readers: The following post is based on Israel’s exit polls. The final outcome is different. So we advise you to also read my later post: The morning after the elections: Things that I need to take back.
Election night is not a night for great themes, it is a night for a detailed crunching of numbers and possibilities. Numbers dictate the outcome. Numbers – and the President, who gets to decide which of the candidates is going to have a first attempt at building a new coalition.
In 1984, an Israeli President – Haim Herzog – played a major role in convincing Yitzhak Shamir, Likud, and Shimon Peres to form a unity government. The current President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, is familiar with this piece of political history, and it would not be a wild guess to assume that he might use it in his next meeting with Herzog’s son, Yitzhak Herzog. Rivlin entered Election Day as a supporter of a unity government. I don’t see a reason for the outcome of the vote – if the exit polls are accurate – to change his mind.
The fact of the matter is that, as expected, neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor Labor leader Herzog have an easy path to a stable coalition. But the fact of the matter is also that a unity government, too, would not be easy to form. Netanyahu, time and again vowed not to take part in such government. The tree he climbed is high. One should hope that Rivlin have a stock of long enough ladders.
The Israeli voter, as expected, did not make a clear decision. Back room deals are going to dictate the final outcome of the 2015 election.
Netanyahu: A narrow coalition?
Netanyahu is relieved, but he did not clearly win this election. Too many people are tired of him. Only the voters of the solid right clearly stated their desire to see him come back as the PM. Voters for all the other parties had to take into account the possibility of him not being Prime Minister. The exit polls predict a possible right-wing bloc of 63 seats. Many voters, even among these 64 (Note: we update the numbers as they get in), either want Netanyahu to go, or at least are willing to let him go.
But this does not mean that Netanyahu can’t be Prime Minister. Here is the math for him on the road to 61.
Likud + Habayit Hayehudi + Yachad (0) – that is the solid right: 36-37.
Two Haredi parties – they can go with him, but would also go with Herzog: 13.
Unreliable allies, Lieberman and Kahlon, who could go both ways: 15.
If all these decide to go with him, Netanyahu could have a coalition of about 64 – a coalition that each of these parties could topple, a coalition that half of Israel would truly hate, a coalition that the world would see with weary eyes.
Does Netanyahu want such a coalition? On the eve of the elections he said yes, but he might have said this in the hope that his numbers would be better. A more important question, though, is whether Netanyahu’s potential partners want to take part in such a coalition. Some of them – like Naftali Bennett of Habit Hayehudi – don’t have much choice. They have no other coalition. Some – the Haredi parties – might feel the need to examine the potential of such a coalition because they know that another coalition would not be agreeable to many of their voters. And some – Kahlon and Lieberman – might decide to join in only if they discover that the alternative is not better or does not exist.
The bottom line: It is possible, but hardly appealing.
Herzog: Is he a winner?
Itzhak Herzog brought a party back from the dead and made it a player. He managed to convince many Israelis that he could be Prime Minister even though he has never held a senior position in a cabinet before. He is a clear winner of this election cycle.
But this does not mean that he can be Prime Minister. Here is the math for him on the road to 61.
The Zionist Camp + Yesh Atid + Meretz – the parties that must go with him: 42.
Two Haredi parties – can go with him, but might prefer Netanyahu: 13.
Unreliable allies, Kahlon and Lieberman, who could go both ways: 15.
The Arab Party – not part of a coalition, but an obstacle for Netanyahu: 13.
Bottom line: if all these decide to go with him, Herzog can have a coalition of 70. But is that likely? The Haredis said before the election that they would not sit with Yesh Atid. Lieberman said he would not sit with Meretz. Herzog can live without Lieberman, but he can’t live without the Haredis or Lapid (of course, Shas and UTJ could split; in such case Herzog could make it with a coalition that has both Lapid and one of them).
If Herzog can put this miracle coalition together, he’ll surely do it. But he knows that such a coalition would be short-lived and very unstable. So he’d much rather have a more stable and more solid coalition with Likud, with him at the helm. Before Election Day, Netanyahu said that he is not going to join a unity coalition with Labor. But maybe Netanyahu doesn’t have to be a part of the coalition. Maybe it could be a coalition with Likud and without Netanyahu.
Unity: Can these two work together?
Yesterday I wrote that “since a stable coalition is much easier to accomplish when two parties are the two main building blocks; since any narrow coalition would mean caving to special demands and interests of small parties; since a narrow coalition is going to be highly unacceptable to almost half the public; because of all of these reasons, a unity government is probably the easiest, most viable way forward”.
It is – if Herzog and Netanyahu can agree to form such a government.
There are many obstacles to making it happen:
1. Who gets to be the PM? Herzog would say, if he gets to a tie when the actual votes are counted, that he should have the job. Netanyahu would say – based on the fact that, at least in theory, he can form a narrow coalition and Herzog can’t – that he should be the PM. This could be a major obstacle.
2. Who gets to go first? If Netanyahu and Herzog overcome problem number one by deciding on a rotation – two years in the PM’s seat for each – then the question becomes who gets the first two years. Both have reasons to worry that the other side does not truly intend to keep his part of the bargain. Herzog should be worried based on a long list of broken promises made by Netanyahu. Netanyahu could look at the agreement between Herzog and Livni that went down the drain shortly after it was conceived.
3. The public does’t like it. During the campaign a unity government was not a popular idea. Now, with Labor getting 27 and Likud 27-28, the voters of both camps might expect to see their camps ruling, not compromising. Of course, voters don’t matter as much after Election Day, but the view of the public does play a role when political leaders make decisions. If unity remains unpopular – that’s a problem. But there is also a possibility that the public will now change its mind, and go back to supporting unity as it did many times in the past.
4. Netanyahu’s ego. For him, serving in a government under Herzog might be unbearably difficult.
5. The parties. Can Herzog, with all the credit he now has following this great victory, convince his party members that a government with Netanyahu is the best idea? A lot depends on the details of the actual unity agreement (who’s PM, who gets to go first, etc.), but some Labor members have claimed in the past that they would not go along with such a scheme. Can the bruised Netanyahu convince his own Huns to enter a coalition with his rivals? Some members of Likud might prefer going into the opposition, getting rid of Netanyahu, and getting prepared for the next round, which, they believe, will come shortly.
6. Policies. In truth, I don’t think this would be such a great obstacle. It would be the excuse that both parties could use if they decide, for other reasons, that unity is not the outcome they want.
More winners:
Livni: Amazingly, she gets to survive for yet another term, possibly as a senior minister. I don’t think anyone will ever be able to break her record – she gets to represent a fourth party as a minister. She was a minister as a member of Likud, Kadima, Hatnua, and now The Zionist Camp.
The Arab Party: Arab Israelis demonstrated their political potential by going to vote and making their party the third largest in the Knesset. Can they translate this success to actual power? that depends on the ability of their leaders to focus on things that they can change – social integration, the bettering of conditions – rather than on angering Jewish Israelis by making controversial statements.
Meretz: Survived – that is the most they could expect.
Lieberman: Ditto.
Eli Yishai: He did not survive. Bad for him, good for Israel, which yet again refused to elect radical rightists to the Knesset.
More losers:
The right: Too many parties resulted in losing a significant number of seats because of Yachad’s failure to cross the electoral threshold. This has happened in the past, but the right didn’t learn its lesson.
Naftaly Bennett: The leader of Habit Hayehudi was supposed to be the king of this election, but he made too many mistakes and learned the hard way that his party is not in sync with his ambition to become the PM.
Yair Lapid: On the one hand, he survived after a highly problematic term as Finance Minister and the leader of the second largest party. On the other hand, he lost a lot of steam in the final days of the campaign and is not likely to have a major role, if any, in the next coalition.
And when the dust settles down, we’ll also have to talk about the poor, insulting performance of Israel’s press, and about the ridiculously outdated election laws.
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