On Sunday, December 28, a panel of nine Supreme Court judges convened to confer on petition against legislation passed in March 2014 which raised the Knesset’s electoral threshold to 3.25%. In December 2013, the right-wing parties reached an agreement among themselves to raise the electoral threshold for representation in the Knesset from 2% to 3.25%. The motive behind the change: In future elections, this move would inevitably eliminate from the Knesset smaller parties which do not gain a high enough percentage of the vote to pass the threshold.
Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, Chairman of the Central Elections Committee for the 20th Knesset. (Photo: Supreme Court)
Several MKs have complained that the newly legislated threshold is geared to entirely remove Arab parties from the Knesset. Based on Israel’s current population, the new electoral threshold requires even the smallest contending parties to win at least four seats in the Knesset or to have no representation at all. In the Knesset’s current plenum, all the Arab parties and Hadash have either four or three seats. At the time, MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) called the decision tantamount to conducting a “political transfer” against the Arab parties in Israel, saying: “In the past, Liberman has proffered ideas to ‘transfer’ the Israeli Arab population out of the country; now he is behind this ‘political transfer’ that seeks to deny Arabs fair representation in the Israeli political process.” He added: “This move will erect very high walls around the political system and prevent new political movements from forming.”
Similar criticism was heard at Sunday’s Supreme Court panel discussion, when Justice Salim Joubran argued that it was “a needless law – a country’s majority is measured by how it treats minorities.” Joubran, who is serving as the Chairman of the Central Elections Committee for the 20th Knesset, to be elected on March 17, elaborated his opposition to the increasing of the electoral threshold legislated by the Knesset. He asked “How will the world view Israel if there are no Arab parties in the Knesset?”
MK Khenin addressed Sunday’s Supreme Court debate on the petition against the increased threshold, saying he hopes that the court will “defend democracy in favor of the needs of the many rather than the private interests of the few.” He added that not only would the higher threshold impede the ability of newcomers, along with smaller parties and differing ideologies, to enter the political arena, but would also hinder the freedom of choice for Israel’s Arab citizens.
Related:
- Poll Shows: Hadash is Growing
- Association for Civil Rights protests raising the elections threshold
- Netanyahu & Lieberman agree to raise electoral threshold; Hadash calls move anti-democratic
- Hadash and Arab parties: Raising Knesset threshold will backfire on right
- Opponents of raising electoral threshold win coup
- Anti-democratic bill would raise the electoral threshold from two to 3.25 percent
- A call to the Knesset Members to vote against increasing the election threshold
