Election Day in Israel

Today is Election Day in Israel. Technically elections are supposed to be held every four years, but since Israel has a proportional representation parliamentary system and an ever increasing number of political parties from all (and I do mean ALL) sides of the spectrums (political, economic, religious, and ethnic) elections are called whenever the ruling party can no longer hold together a coalition of at least 61 seats (the parliment has 120). This is not a four year election. Tzipi Livni, the head of Kadima since Prime Minister Olmert stepped down from head of the party in disgrace (he's heavily suspected of fraud and corruption) in October, was unable to create a ruling coalition, which is why these elections were called.

I think the Israeli political system is totally ridiculous and ineffectual. But it has one hugely redemptive feature--Election Day is a national holiday in Israel. Shops and other hospitality industry services are still open, but everyone else has the day off. Voter turnout is amazing. Today about 50% of eligible Israelis voted. And it was raining today.*

Today we went to Rechovot, which is about ten minutes from Ramla, with our program coordinator, TG (I'm trying to avoid using names here, no one asked to be mentioned so I'd rather not). TG took us to a polling station--a school. Israel isn't really equipped for rain, so some amusing chaos insued. For instance, in Rechovot, a tree fell on power lines, and several polling stations lost electricity. The polling station we went to was part of the blackout, so people were using flashlights and candlelight to vote.

TG then tooks us to the Labour and Kadima party headquarters in Rechovot. Labour was very friendly and welcoming, and described both their election day procedures and the Israeli political system. Unfortunately, Labour did not find greatness tonight. They are now the fourth largest party in Israel, having lost their number three spot to an ultra-rightist party, Avigdor's Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu. It was an extremely tight contest between Kadima, Tzipi Livni's party, and Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi)'s party. Bibi has already been prime minister. I think he is good for Israeli national confidence but absolutely horrible for creating a strong and lasting future for Israel, which is more important to me. He's aggressively pro-settlement and anti-Arab. Fortunately, it looks like Kadima won, but only by one seat. It's unlikely that she'll be able to form a ruling coalition, so its very possible that there will be elections again in a few months.

We will see how this all turns out. I'm very hopeful. Plus, even though Israel has already had a female Prime Minister (Golda Mier, who by many standards did not technically do that great of a job), it would be nice to have another female in power.
*Something about the rain today: supposedly winter is rainy season in Israel. Until today, it had only rained for an hour or so since I'd been here. The rain made our tour difficult, but it was wonderful for the country. I hope we get more.