Yesh Atid submits its own electoral reform bill

Bill will limit number of ministers to 18, who can each hold one portfolio; raise electoral threshold from 2 to 4%.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Ronen Hoffman (photo credit: Courtesy Knesset)
Ronen Hoffman
(photo credit: Courtesy Knesset)
Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and MK Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu are to duel in the Knesset with rival electoral reform bills after Yesh Atid submitted its legislation Monday.
The bill, sponsored by Yesh Atid MK Ronen Hoffman, would limit the number of ministers to 18, who can each hold one portfolio. It would raise the electoral threshold from two to four percent and cancel the law that requires new elections if the budget does not pass.
Yisrael Beytenu’s bill, which passed in a preliminary reading last month, has been criticized for requiring a Knesset majority in order to submit a no-confidence motion. The bill’s opponents have said it would make submitting such motions nearly impossible, stifling democratic debate.
Hoffman’s bill would instead raise the minimum number of MKs required to pass a no-confidence motion from 61 to 65. Hoffman said this would be enough to prevent a prime minister from having to work hard to defeat such motions every week rather than working on matters of state.
“The bill provides a healthy balance between the need for the opposition to deliver fair criticism and the need for the government to work,” Lapid told his faction in the Knesset on Monday.
Hoffman said his bill and Yisrael Beytenu MK David Rotem’s would eventually be combined. He expressed hope that as many of his party’s principles as possible could be included in the final version of the legislation.