Rivlin: Knesset Must Regulate Politicians’ Ability to Switch Parties
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Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin
Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90
Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin (Likud) criticized the practice of switching between parties by various Members of Knesset and Knesset candidates , calling on the next Knesset to regulate such behavior, Israel’s Channel 10 website reported.
“We need to ask ourselves what is transpiring in our political culture,” Rivlin said. “To my regret, what was in the past an exception, has in recent days become routine and accepted behavior.”
“The next Knesset must answer to the constitutional and democratic question: can a candidate that competed in the primaries of one party join soon after in another party?”
The latest candidate to switch parties was former Labor Chairman Amir Peretz who just resigned from Labor and will be joining Tzipi Livni’s party, “The Movement,” as the second candidate on that party’s list after Livni herself.
Peretz claims that one of the reasons for his leaving the Labor party was that its new chairman, Shelly Yachamovitch has not publicly ruled out the possibility of joining a government with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Many members of Kadima have either resigned or have also left their party for Livni’s new party in recent days.
In the Israeli political system, to be elected to the Knesset a candidate must win a secure spot in a party slate or start a new party himself. Running with a party on a spot below the number of seats polls show that party will receive is political suicide.
Many polls show that Kadima will not pass the voting threshold and will not have any seats in the next Knesset.
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IMO, the Knesset must regulate politicians ability to go against the party platform promises under which they became elected.
Here in America, politicians switch parties all the time. Five Democrats just switched to support Republican control of the New York State Senate. The remedy is not to regulate them, but to defeat them at the next election.