electoral reform bill

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Knesset Members protest in silence the rise of election threshold to 4 percent, a move that could see all Palestinian perties eliminated. From top-left corner: MK Barakeh (Hadash); MK Tibi, with back to the Knesset (Ra'am Ta'al); MK Zoabi (Balad); MK Gal-On (Meretz); MK Zahalka, with tape on his mouth (Balad); MK Gafni (United Torah Judaism); MK Zandberg (Meretz); MK Michaeli (Labor); MK Horowitz (Meretz)

Why the electoral threshold stokes internal conflict

A half-empty Knesset voted Tuesday to approve an electoral reform bill theoretically intended to stabilize governance in a country with a notoriously unstable system by raising the voting threshold to 3.25% from the current 2% (itself an increase from earlier years), among other reforms. To understand why change elicits such visceral reactions, it should be…

By Dahlia Scheindlin March 12, 2014