Minority governments not lacking legitimacy - analysis
What would happen if a minority coalition of Blue and White, Labor-Gesher-Meretz and Yisrael Beytenu would be the only possible government that could be built after the March 2 election?
By GIL HOFFMANA voter in Jerusalem in the last Knesset election on April 9(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said: “It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.”Rousseau lived in the 1700s. But his quote could apply in Israel in 2020, two weeks before the country’s third election in under a year, with seemingly no end in sight.Blue and White leader Benny Gantz defended himself from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attacks in his weekend interviews, denying that he intends to form a unity government backed by the Joint List from outside the coalition.Netanyahu responded that there is no other government that Gantz could form. Blue and White replied to him that he cannot build any coalition at all. Current polls indicate that both are correct.So what would happen if a minority coalition of Blue and White, Labor-Gesher-Meretz and Yisrael Beytenu were the only possible government coalition that could be built after the March 2 election?Such a scenario could take place if those three parties receive more seats together than the four in Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, and if the Joint List would agree not to let the government fall in return for relatively uncontroversial funding to build up the infrastructure in Arab towns.Assaf Shapira, who directs the Israel Democracy Institute’s political reform program, said that minority governments can accomplish almost as much as majority governments. There is no need for 61 MKs to approve a government, appoint a minister or pass any law, except amending a Basic Law that stipulated a special majority for changes.“A minority government is not a government of paralysis,” Shapira said. “It’s a government that relies on support from outside. It’s less acceptable in Israel, but in other countries it’s very acceptable.”Shapira conducted a study of governments in Europe’s 29 democracies from 1945 to 2010 and found that one third of them were minority governments.There are countries where minority governments are the norm. Eighty-nine percent of the governments in Denmark have been minority governments, and they are also common in Spain, Sweden, Romania and Norway. There is currently a minority government in Canada and there was one in the United Kingdom until their recent election.But in Israel, minority governments are seen as illegitimate, because they do not have the support of a majority of the people. No minority government has ever been formed in Israel immediately after an election.There have been minority governments after parties have left coalitions – most notably after Shas left Yitzhak Rabin’s government in September 1993 – until Netanyahu formed a coalition after the May 1996 election.Shapira said that while minority governments look less legitimate, a caretaker government – as Israel has had since December 2018 – is arguably even less legitimate.“A caretaker government has already been toppled,” he said. “A minority government can be toppled. It’s up to the Knesset to topple it and if it does not, it’s legitimate. It would be easy to explain that they did their best to form a majority government, but a minority government is better than another election.”So will a minority government be formed? It is still unlikely, because of all the promises otherwise and because of the unpopularity of the Joint List, due to both genuine security fears and racism.If one does get formed, it could take time before it is perceived as natural.
Related TagsMeretzYisrael Beyteinugesher
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