Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
its stances on issues and the legislation it will work to pass. The prime minister - elect and
those designated for the purpose meet with all other parties that might join the coalition.
The negotiations focus on what the leading party will offer and the smaller parties take in
terms of appointments for ministers, deputy ministers, and committee chairs. Offering the
prestigious —but not intrinsically powerful— title of deputy prime minister to the leader of
the second-biggest party can be an attractive sweetener of a coalition deal, as can promises of
budgetary support for a party's constituents.
Usually the distribution of power in the coalition is based on the relative size of the parties.
The most sought-after posts are those of foreign, defense, and fi nance ministers. Haredi par-
ties do not want to take ministerial positions and so prefer to be deputy ministers or chairs of
Knesset committees as their price for joining a coalition.
Sometimes certain parties —usually religious parties and advocates of secularism — refuse
to belong in the same coalition. Equally, religious parties compete for specifi c offi ces, notably
control of the ministries of religion and the interior, which can provide funds for their con-
stituents. Ethnic parties whose voters are from the former Soviet Union want to control the
Ministry of Absorption, which deals with immigrants.
The prime minister must juggle different possible numerical combinations to achieve the
greatest possible majority with the fewest likely problems. It has often been shown, however —
in making and in maintaining coalitions — that a clever, persistent politician can overcome
even the shrillest demands and the strongest insistence that no compromise is possible. After
all, the chance of participating in the government, gaining the prestige of high offi ce, having
power over budgets and decision making, and providing benefi ts for one's supporters are high
incentives for politicians. Still, leaders can reject such incentives in matters of principle and
cases of high-priority policies.
Thus, while parties join a coalition to exercise power and patronage by getting legislation
passed and by controlling ministries, they will not join a coalition — and are more likely to
leave one — if they have substantive disagreements on important issues. During an entire term,
the prime minister must thus take care to retain a majority. Creating and maintaining coali-
tions is a game of leverage, compromise, and, at times, threats; the prime minister may express
a readiness to let the government fall— and sometimes implement those warnings — or may
throw out dissenters. Parties may threaten to walk out of the coalition to force an election, and
they sometimes do so. But if the coalition partners believe on the basis of polls that they will
lose seats in an election, they usually want to avoid being responsible for a dissolution of the
Knesset and an early election that damages their party.
Sometimes a coalition can survive with only a minority of MKs but can stay in power
with a majority on the basis of votes from non-coalition parties. On at least two important
occasions — the peace treaty with Egypt and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip — a Likud-
led government could not depend on all its members to support the proposal and required
outside support from Labor and Meretz MKs for its majority on those votes.
All ministers must be Israeli citizens and residents. However, they are not necessarily ex-
perts on the issues their ministries cover. As in the British system, they usually depend on
