JERUSALEM, June 3 (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Ehud Barak, at odds about so much, now find themselves perched on the same shaky limb in the wake of a Knesset move to change the system of electing a prime minister. Last week’s vote to revoke the direct election law — in effect only since 1996 — was a preliminary move that requires further discussion and drafting before it becomes law. But the 50-45 vote, which ensures further action on the bill, signified a stinging slap in the face for the heads of both the Likud and Labor parties. Both Netanyahu and Barak flatly oppose the bill, which was submitted jointly by Yossi Beilin of Labor and Uzi Landau of Likud. The vote comes at an especially interesting time. Once again, as has often been the case during Netanyahu’s two years in power, the political community is awash with rumors and speculation: Will there be a unity government, early elections or possible defections among coalition partners? The immediate trigger for the speculation is the political tension and uncertainty over the still-stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The U.S. administration, deferring and softening deadline after deadline, now says it expects Israel’s final reply to its 13 percent pullback proposal within the next week or two. The U.S. plan seeks a further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank along with concrete Palestinian steps to crack down on terrorism. Netanyahu met with various ministerial forums this week, but no decision has yet emerged. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai flew to Cairo for a lengthy private session with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After the meeting, Mordechai declared that “the time has come to make decisions.” On the Arab side, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and some other regional leaders were pressing for a special Arab summit to condemn what they see as Israeli intransigence and decide on measures to chill still further the cold peace with the Jewish state. As always, the crisis atmosphere enveloping the peace process breeds talk of political cataclysm at home. But for the first time during Netanyahu’s term, the idea of revoking the direct election law for prime minister, and returning to the previous party-centered election system, seems suddenly more than a pipe dream in the minds of a few disgruntled political has-beens. The public movement to revoke the law has as its figureheads Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, the former Labor and Likud prime ministers, respectively, whose unseemly political horse-trading with smaller parties after close elections in 1988 and again after the fall of their unity government in 1990 led to the enactment of the direct election law. But the two elder statesmen, joined by former defense minister — and former Netanyahu mentor — Moshe Arens, now have powerful support from active politicians in both of the main parties. In addition, there are converts — politicians who previously enthusiastically supported the direct election bill but are now disenchanted and yearn to return to the former system, with all its blemishes. Under the former system, each Israeli citizen voted just once, for the party of his or her choice. Each party put up a list of candidates. The top name on each list was that party’s candidate for prime minister. But it was not always the largest party emerging from the election that formed the new government. That always depended on gathering a coalition of parties. Under that system, the prime minister could be deposed with relative ease by a simple Knesset majority. A new prime minister could be appointed in his place without triggering the dissolution of the Knesset and the holding of new elections, which is what the new system requires. Political theorists who led the reform movement in the late 1980s argued that the system gave disproportionate power to the small parties, especially to the Orthodox and fervently Orthodox, who became the invariable power brokers. Under the new system, which was implemented for the first time in 1996, the voter votes twice: once for the party of his or her choice and once for prime minister. The 1996 election saw a decline of both Likud and Labor in favor of smaller parties in the Knesset. Political scientists say this process is likely to accelerate next time, as more and more people take advantage of the opportunity to split their vote between, say, the fervently Orthodox Shas Party for the Knesset and Netanyahu as premier, or Meretz for the Knesset and Barak for premier. Those advocating a return to the old system — including many university scholars who were the early proponents of change — contend that the new system in fact has given even more power to the small parties. They argue that while the new system does ensure that the one who wins the most votes is the sole choice for prime minister, that individual is more beholden than ever to the small parties in order to establish and maintain a parliamentary coalition with a working majority. Witness, they say Netanyahu’s dependence on his coalition partners. Ironically, Netanyahu’s controversial personality and patchy record as prime minister furnish the strongest arguments for both sides in this burgeoning debate. The “change-back” camp says that the prime minister, elected under the new system, has become essentially like a president, effectively unremovable even by his own party and not accountable, in practice to the Knesset. They say that under the old system, the Likud itself would have ditched Netanyahu in mid-term in favor of a better leader — a scenario that is nearly impossible under the new system. For its part, the “stay-put” camp argues that Netanyahu’s performance, or individual personalities, should not be a factor in deciding a long-term constitutional question. In fact, they accuse the other side of seeking to prevent another Netanyahu electoral triumph — and being prepared to abrogate a basically sound constitutional reform in order to achieve this. In any case, says Knesset member Amnon Rubinstein of Meretz, an unrepentant advocate of direct election, a return to the old way would not guarantee that a Labor candidate would become the next prime minister. As long as all the Orthodox parties line up with Likud, he says, the likelihood is that Labor and its allies would have too few seats to form a government under the old system. The Beilin-Landau bill would need a majority of at least 61 in the 120-seat Parliament.
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