By Paul Shindman

I get the feeling that Canadians think minority governments are a pain. With the big roar last month when the opposition ganged up on the minority Conservative government it seemed like Canadians were getting a taste of Israeli politics.

What?!?! How could the mess in the House of Commons have any similarities to the craziness of Israeli politics? And do Canadians really know how different the Israeli political scene is?

In less than two weeks Israelis go back to the ballot box to pick a new government, and the outcome is already known: a minority government. In fact, Israel has always had minority governments. As a Canadian living here for decades, I thought I always longed for the stability of the “Canadian political system”.

But now, Canada seems to be stable no more. Or is it just a new reality for multi-party politics?

The election system in Israel is very different from Canada. Yes, it’s still one person-one vote with a secret ballot, but in many ways that’s where the similarities end. Israelis will vote for a party, not a person. Israel is not divided up into electoral districts, so you don’t have a specific person representing you in the Knesset, Israel’s 120-seat parliament. Instead, we use the “proportional representation” system – if a party gets 40% of the vote, then they get 40% of the seats.

Unlike the House of Commons which has changed and grown over the years, Israel’s house of parliament has always had 120 seats. Like Canada (and unlike the USA), Israel has a multi-party system. But much much much more multi, in fact the current session has 12 different parties. And switching party allegiances during the sitting session is more common than not as disgruntled Knesset members jockey for position.

Canada, with only four parties and 2 independents seemed like a rock of stability compared to Israel. But Canadians find again that minority governments are a problem even with only a few parties compared to Israel’s dozen.

Will the Liberals back the Tory budget? Will the opposition gang up to topple the Tories and then form a coalition government? Or could Harper cobble together a coalition with another party and have a two-party majority government? Sound like a strange concept?

Does a Canadian coalition government sound more like a reality television gone bad than regular national politics?

Welcome to the reality of Israeli politics, where there has never been a majority government and a coalition always rules. So I guess Israelis live reality politics all the time. (And yes, more often than not you feel that the show has lousy ratings, but there’s nothing else to choose from!)

When Israelis  cast their ballots on February 10th, the polls this week are predicting a victory for the Likud Party, lead by the familiar English-speaking Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. But his “victory” is predicted to be only 30 seats in the 120-seat house. A far cry from days when Likud and i’s rival Labor Party would each win 40-something seats. A majority of 61 seats was oh so much closer back then.

So if the predictions hold, then the Likud Party will have to find partners to form a majority coalition government. And they will need several partners to do it. Today, that just doesn’t seem possible in Canada, where nobody could see the Tories and Grits getting together and splitting cabinet posts to form a government. And the opposite has never happened: opposition parties joining forces to form a majority government. It’s so outlandish that protests were held in Canada and the media was in an uproar.

Here? Heck, that’s how we run things normally. The leader whose party comes out on top February 10th will have to sell part of his or her soul, cave in to some smaller party demands, and glue together enough votes to keep a majority in the Knesset. Normally, that’s supposed to last four years, but the last two sessions here lasted about three years each. For the most part over the past 60 years, the coalitions have usually served out most of their four year terms.

As a Canadian, I always think of Canada as the example of a great bastion of stability with a rock solid majority government. Ok, that stability is still there, but the new flavour of Canuck minority democracy seems to be taking some getting used to. As an Israeli, I always think of Israel as a example of a weird bastion of stability with a surprising democracy that looks wobbly, but is actually rock solid.

Come February 11 when the election results are in and the coalition negotiations begin in Israel, it will look shaky to Canadians, but as Canadians appear to be learning – it is just the opening move in the peaceful transition of power that we’re used to both here and over there.

Related posts:

1. Small town elections in Israel, just like home, eh?