Labor declares war on Yesh Atid electoral reform plan

Herzog told faction that Yesh Atid's plan was "dangerous" and copy of electoral plan submitted by Yisrael Beytenu leader Liberman.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
fmr minister of Welfare and Social Affairs Isaac Herzog 390 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
fmr minister of Welfare and Social Affairs Isaac Herzog 390
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Labor faction chairman Isaac Herzog vowed to quash Yesh Atid’s proposal for electoral reform in a meeting on Monday with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.
Herzog told his faction that Yesh Atid’s plan was “dangerous” and is a copy of an electoral plan submitted by Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman.
“We are going to fight against the plan,” Herzog said. “We have to stop it.”
On Sunday, the Ministerial Committee on Legislation passed Yesh Atid’s electoral reform bill, clearing the way for it to pass into law by the end of the month, when the Knesset begins its summer recess.
The bill, proposed by MK Ronen Hoffman, calls for limiting the number of ministers to 18, who can each hold only one portfolio, and capping the number of deputy ministers at four. The bill would raise the minimum number of MKs required to pass a no-confidence motion from 61 to 65 and the electoral threshold from two to four percent.
The bill’s next step will take place Wednesday, when it will come to a vote in a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum. There will then be negotiations to combine it with a bill proposed by Knesset Law Committee chairman David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu) that already passed in its preliminary reading on May 8 before coming to final votes by the end of the month.
Hoffman said that Herzog’s comparison of his bill with Rotem’s showed that he had not read it, and that the bills are actually very different.
“If we need to go to war against Labor to make the changes that need to be made, we are ready to go to war,” Hoffman said.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said the passage of Hoffman’s bill would be proof that his party keeps its electoral promises.