Benevolent Democratic Dictatorship

[eumelia]

On Tuesday February 10th the State of Israel will be voting for it's 18th General Election (and our 5th in a decade, seriously, "Third World" stability) and it is slim pickings.

I'm obsessing a bit on the decision because it will actually be the first time I vote for the country's Knesset and PM. This isn't so surprising when one realised that I turned 18 two weeks after the 2003 elections and was out of the country in 2006, so... didn't get to vote.
Add to all that, that I'm actually politically aware and that my own politics seriously do not align with... anything that's on the electoral market.

I've no faith in the system.

Even the small parties that are voted in have very little power and generally produce bills to do with social welfare which is always good, of course, but with the way this country is going in that regard it looks as though even the Communist Party (the forerunners in social welfare laws) will be losing it's footing.

The whole election process is such a crock. We, the citizens, know that each and everyone of the politicians is corrupt, that every single move they make is in their own self-interests, that none of them have any intention of creating change (other than increasing the change lining their pockets) and that any ideology they have is used for nothing more than for pushing an agenda that will give them more power.

The main election issue floating around in the media isn't social welfare, or even the mush hailed Peace Process (which has been a joke for many a year).

It's how "we're" going to deal with Gaza.

There's no talk about... talking.

The word Occupation hasn't been mentioned anywhere, leaving the conciousness of the masses who are gearing to vote for a government that will continue streaming money into an Army that is being trained in policing a population while calling it "Defence".
Indeed, the whole "Only Democracy in the Middle East" myth doesn't live up to the standard of Israel believes itself to emulate.
We are of the British parliamentary method.
The fact that there is a vote doesn't a Democracy make.
When it is your ethnicity that dictates whether you are a citizen or second-class citizen...
When your religion dictates who you can associate and marry...
Well, I don't see any Western ideal there.

One of my friends mentioned that she will be voting for Tzipi Livni.
I asked her why, genuinely curious.
She said she can't not vote for a woman, because even if she doesn't do anything different (which she won't in the event of her being elected) there is still something symbolic in having a woman Prime Minister.
And in general I would agree.
But the idea of voting for someone which the only difference between her and the other candidates is Livni being a woman (it's a big significance difference), when her politics are just atrocious as Netanyahu's and Barak's.

I'm seriously considering blank-balloting.

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Three years ago people voted for the Senior party in protest and it actually got madates!

Now imagine if all those people blank-balloted. That's not a symbol, that's a big effing statement.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Is it possible we're using national party in different ways? I assumed you were using it to refer to a party large enough to have had municipal candidates nationwide. Were you using it to refer to a party tied with a particular "nation" (so you don't want to vote for the Arab party any more than you do a Jewish one)?

I never meant to suggest that blank-balloting is comparable to voting for a "different national party". You said in the original post that you're "seriously considering blank-balloting" and then in your comment that you don't want to vote symbolically, and I wanted to be sure I understood the significance of blank-balloting in the Israeli system. Blank balloting seemed like a pretty symbolic choice to me, but guessed that maybe blank balloting has some potential concrete result (i.e. if enough people do it they have to re-do elections).

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I'm really genuinely curious where such a statement, with blank ballots, would lead though? Because, supposedly the most it would lead to would be... another election? With the same candidates? Choosing the senior party was an actual choice, a suggestion for a course of action. A blank ballot is sort of like saying "I don't like this" and not actually suggesting anything as an alternative? Which, realistically, isn't likely to get things to change from whatever they were before? And that's assuming there's even enough for a "statement" to be made, whereas in every election where blank ballots are not an overwhelming % of the vote (every election so far, ever, if I'm not mistaken?) they're just more blank paper to be tossed int eh trash and more votes that didn't contribute to whatever solution ended up being acheived?

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Again, I was just trying to make sense of what I read as a differentiation between blank balloting and not voting. Maybe I just misunderstood the post/comment and the OP wasn't trying to distinguish the two. At no point did I say that I thought voting for a non-mainstream party (like the senior party) was comparable to blank balloting.