MK Khenin accused Yesh Atid of doing the right-wing government’s dirty work

MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) told the Knesset Wednesday, “The proposal to change the method of governance is anti-democratic. Increase the Knesset entrance threshold? What about small Arab and left-wing parties? How will they have enough votes to enable fair democratic representation? Additionally, how can the proposal warrant allowing a government to continue its tenure following a no-confidence motion, just because no replacement government was proposed? Such a situation should mean going back to the people for full elections.”

MK Dov Khenin (Photo: Al Ittihad)

Yesh Atid’s electoral reform bill passed a preliminary reading of the Knesset plenum on Wednesday, with 60 MKs voting in favor of the bill and 44 opposed. The bill, proposed by MK Ronen Hoffman, would raise the minimum number of MKs required to pass a no-confidence motion from 61 to 65 and the electoral threshold from two to four percent. There will now be negotiations to combine the Yesh Atid bill with a bill proposed by extreme-right Knesset Law Committee chairman David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu) that already passed in its preliminary reading on May 8 before coming to final votes by the end of the month. MK Khenin attacked the bill as being the same as Yisrael Beytenu’s bill “in Yesh Atid wrapping paper.” Khenin claimed that “the raising of the electoral threshold strikes a fatal blow to ideological parties.” He accused Yesh Atid of doing the right-wing government’s dirty work.