1. Primaries are held in each party in order to create a list of candidates from that party who will await Knesset seats received from the national elections. Each winning candidate in the primary is assigned a certain position on the list, depending on the primary vote, and that position corresponds with the number of seats earned in the national voting. For example, if a party wins 10 seats in the national election, the first 10 people on its list, determined in the primaries, will be "seated in the Knesset." A party must reach a 2% threshold of the popular vote before garnering any seats in the general elections.
2. General elections are held.
3. After the number of seats won by each party is determined*, the President of Israel approaches all the parties in the Knesset to see who they recommend, based on the elections, to form the next government. Usually it is the party winning the most seats, but not necessarily so. There have to be 61 seats held by the winning party to have a mandate to govern. If no one wins the 61 seats, which is normally the situation, then the party most able to put together a coalition to reach a combined 61 seats or above, is the one recommended.
*COUNTING THE VOTES: HERE IS WHERE IT GETS COMPLICATED
4. After the elections, there are TWO ROUNDS OF DETERMINING THE SEATS:
Round One: The popular vote calculated for seats won right away. This includes waiting for the IDF, hospital and prison votes. This has now been completed. The results are as follows:
RIGHT WING BLOC: Likud 27, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Is Our Home) 15, Ichud Leumi (National Union) 4, Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) 3, Shas 11, United Torah Judaism 5
Total Seats 65
LEFT WING BLOC: Kadima 28, Labor 13, Meretz 3, Ra'am Ta'al (Arab party) 4, Balad (Arab party)3, Hadash (Arab/Jewish party) 4
Total Seats 55
Based on these results, even though Kadima won 1 more seat than Likud, the Right Wing Bloc won 65 seats as opposed to the 55 seats for the Left Wing Bloc, so it is thought that Netanyahu has the better chance to form a coalition.
There is plenty of talk, bartering, banter and rumor flying through the media and the street regarding what will happen.
The seat count we have at present is from Round One.
WHY WE ARE STILL WAITING FOR PERES TO APPROACH THE KNESSET:
Round Two has not yet been completed. It will be completed by Wednesday the 18th. What is Round Two??
Round Two: In Israel there is something called Vote Sharing. Prior to the elections, each party has the opportunity to engage in vote sharing. There is a formula (beyond me to decipher) that determines how many votes it takes to make one seat. There will always be left over or surplus votes, not enough to add another seat, that seem to go to waste. To avoid the problem of wasted votes, parties can share those extra votes. Sometimes it might make a difference for one of the parties to gain one more seat by combining the extra votes of the two parties. The agreement with whom to share is made BEFORE the elections.
Here is how the vote-sharing pairing went this year:Likud with Yisrael Beiteinu,
Kadima w/ Green Party (this pairing is now disqualified as the Green Party did not reach the 2% threshold and has no seats in the upcoming Knesset)
Labor w/Meretz
National Union (Ichud Leumi) w/Jewish Home
Shas w/United Torah Judaism
These calculations are now being made. It is possible that Yisrael Beiteinu's extra votes combined with Likud's extra votes will make an extra seat for the combined parties (Likud 27 + Yisrael Beiteinu 15 = 42 then COULD become 43 seats total)
Peres has stated he will approach no party until that final and official calculation is made. Until then, it is all speculation.
So, Israel is turning to other news now while we wait. Here are some of the more, uhh, interesting headlines, showing we are back to normal.
1. Man dressed as Spiderman lassos cars with his Spider web (ropes) at the Rosh Ha'ayan Junction. (Ynet)
2. A professor of chemistry at Hebrew University was caught (this past Shabbat) cutting the eruv wires in Bayit Vegan neighborhood. (Eruvs are set up to allow religious Jews an area where carrying on the Sabbath is allowable). The police who arrived at the scene beat up the rabbis who refused to get in the police car to testify, as it is against the Sabbath regulations for a religious Jew to ride in a car on the Sabbath. (INNews)
3. Orders have been given to open the Jewish neighborhoods of Hevron to Arab traffic and also talk of opening to the Arabs, another street which links the Jewish areas of Hevron. The second opening would facilitate the rebuilding of Arab stores on those streets. Additionally orders have been give to relinquish checkpoints in the Shomron, a reward for not rioting during the War it is said.
(No one had yet claimed responsibility for the orders, but it is suspected that Barak has done so, perhaps a vindictive last hurrah before retiring to the opposition? - speculation not fact on the who and why). (INNews)
Ahh, Israel. Don't you love it?
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