Hamas War

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Elections? Here We Go Again or Not?



Those of you who know me know that I just can't lie about things. To be honest, I think that Bibi, who's a few months my junior, should retire gracefully. I don't mind having elections, but first Bibi Netanyahu must retire and schedule primaries in the Likud.

Of course, Bibi must not compete. Whoever wins the Likud primaries will be its candidate for Prime Minister, #1 on its list. 

The other political parties, plus some new ones of course-- as this is Israel, will put together their lists hoping that their #1 will have a chance for the top job. And other parties will just hope to pass the minimum needed to get Knesset seats. 

Both before and after elections there will be wheeling and dealing as political parties try to gather enough MKs to craft a viable ruling coalition. 

That's how it's supposed to work. The problem is that it hasn't worked well for years. We've had too many elections that resulted in chaos rather than a ruling coalition. A few months ago when Netanyahu finally put together the most unwieldy coalition ever, it proved to be a total and utter disaster. He offered the world to Blue and White's Benny Gantz, who along with Gabi Ashkenazi, broke away from Yair Lapid. Almost everyone of their MKs got important positions as ministers, while veteran Likud loyalists were left with empty plates. Yemina's Naftali Bennett, who had pledged his party's loyalty to Likud's coalition  and had worked well in various positions when there was no coalition, was treated really badly. So Bennett went into the opposition.

Gantz and Netanyahu, the two Benjamins, Benny and Bibi, did not get along at all. The coalition turned out to be a non-functional nightmare.

I've also lost track of how many "Corona Tsars" there have been since Naftali Bennett's great success in keeping Israel's numbers of COVID/Corona victims amazingly low. The regulations make no sense in most cases. I can't understand how ridiculous they are. 

At this point the process to disband the government isn't yet over. Maybe Bibi will pull something out of his hat. Stay tuned for the next episode...

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