January 23, 2003

Will Shinui change the balance of power?

By Nina Gilbert

The possibility of Shinui emerging from next week's election as the second-largest party in the Knesset has touched off a shockwave in the Labor Party. However, the impact of such a result on the wider political system is more ambiguous.

Polls published in the three Hebrew dailies on Thursday showed the secular Shinui Party closing in on Labor and increasing its chances of emerging as the main power broker in future coalition talks. One poll had Labor a mere two seats ahead of Shinui.

The polls showed that Labor, which is currently the largest party in the Knesset with 26 seats, could win as few as 18 seats in the 16th Knesset.

A poll published in Yediot Aharonot suggested Shinui could win as many as 17 seats almost tripling its current six mandates. Such a result could give Shinui the ability to set its own terms for joining any government set up by the Likud, which the poll said would win 34 seats, up from its current 19.

"We're not counting our chickens yet, but this is very encouraging," Shinui leader Yosef (Tommy) Lapid told Reuters.

Shinui No. 2 Avraham Poraz says that as far as he is concerned the size of Shinui is not the issue. "What matters is whether the party can force an implementation of its political agenda," he said, noting that the party's prime aim is the establishment of a secular government.

But Shinui MK Yossi Paritzky says that attaining the second-largest number of Knesset seats would be significant for Shinui, since it would be the first party to be invited to coalition negotiations.

Prof. Avi Diskin, a Hebrew University political scientist specializing in electoral behavior and electoral systems, agrees with Poraz, explaining that the key to Shinui's success is for it to hold the balance of power. "Size is not important and it is not the decisive factor," he said.

Diskin added that if the Right has a majority without Shinui, the party's position would be considerably weakened, regardless of its size. According to this week's polls, the Right would control some 63-64 Knesset seats.

At the same time, Diskin said that a "wasting" of votes on the Right from the Herut and David Magen's Center list could have an impact on the Right-Left balance.

A failure to have enough Knesset seats to keep the Right out of power was what caused the downfall of the Democratic Movement for Change (Dash) after the 1977 elections.

Diskin sees the Shinui factor as an "exact rerun" of the 1977 election, in which the DMC won 15 seats. The meteoric rise of DMC was accompanied by a downfall in the Labor Alignment from 51 to 32 seats, which made the Likud the biggest party with 43 seats.

He does not believe that the chances are great of Shinui holding the balance of power. However, if Shinui succeeds in forming a blocking majority with Labor, Diskin does not rule out that Lapid could form a coalition with Labor and become the next prime minister.

Yet Paritzky believes that Diskin's scenario is unlikely since in Israeli politics, the "leader of the largest party is destined to be prime minister."

As for the Labor Party, Prof. Shmuel Sandler of Bar-Ilan University believes that if Labor falls below the 20-seat mark, its leader Amram Mitzna might be forced to resign. According to this scenario, Sandler believes that a split in Labor could occur, with the more dovish camp joining the new social democratic party headed by Yossi Sarid and Yossi Beilin, and the more centrist group being led by Binyamin Ben-Eliezer into a national unity government.

But Sandler believes it is more likely that Labor will be the second-largest party and poll at least 20 mandates, since its traditional voters will stay loyal.

However, Diskin believes Labor's continuous attacks on Shinui are actually bringing more voters from the Right to Shinui. If this trend continues, he said, there is a chance that Shinui could surpass Labor or at least equal it.

Sandler attributes Shinui's apparent success to the fact that Mitzna distanced the Labor Party from the center. He says a likely outcome is that Labor and Shinui will be two medium-sized parties in the same way the Likud won 19 seats in the 1999 election and Shas won 17 seats.

After the election, Shinui will face the challenge of ensuring its long-term future. If it joins the government, its future will be more secure.

Sandler says that political scientists have been puzzled for a long time about the failure of a centrist bloc to form in Israel since the majority of the electorate is in the center. In order for Shinui to survive, he says, it must establish a party apparatus, since it does not have members but "people voting by default."

Paritzky says that, as opposed to the DCM, Shinui is an established centrist party whose members have served in the Knesset. While he does not believe the party will collapse in the opposition, he said, "life will be much easier for Shinui if it is in the government."

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