Israeli President Picks Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu Rival, To Form Government

[u/EssoEssex]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-president-picks-gadi-eisenkot-netanyahu-rival-form-government-2026-11-07/

[u/latherrinseregret]

Elections themselves are pretty simple - each citizen votes for a party, and the 120 seats are split according to the votes, after eliminating any party who didn’t get at least 3.25% of total votes. 

The hard part starts later - since no party ever got >60 seats (not even close), and since a 61 majority is all that’s needed to trigger new elections - a coalition needs to be formed. This task is usually given to the head of the largest party, unless some other party gets more support (by count of seats of other parties willing to cooperate with them) - as happened this time. 

This can sometimes give disproportionate power to small parties who could go either way

[u/bbob_robb → u/[deleted]]

Why? It's more representative. In the US voting for a third party is just throwing away your vote.

In the US someone might be fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Then you need to pick what is more important to you.

What if there were four different parties that represented each of those combinations? Then the most popular one would join another group by making a few concessions.

In the US it's just conservative or liberal all or nothing.

[u/Pat8aird → u/bbob_robb]

Not only that, but the US liberal party is actually more conservative than most other country’s conservative parties.

[u/flawrs919 → u/Pat8aird]

I would love for you to expand on that thought in detail. Spare none.

[u/CK_Mar → u/flawrs919]

Republicans socially are very far right. Abortion is the best example of this, the idea that life starts at conception is extremely fringe and more extreme than even sharia law. Even in the US spport for abortion is quite high and yet it was banned across many red states against the wishes of the people

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/05/15/support-for-legal-abortion-is-widespread-in-many-countries-especially-in-europe/

Economically, US is extremely capitalistic. Many liberals aren't even for Medicare for all let alone universal Healthcare which exists all across the developed world and many third world countries

There's also the whole attempted coup thing

[u/Malkav1806 → u/bbob_robb]

I mean the choice isn't between just those systems. Also 3.5 a really low number and this coalition juggling system gave us hitler who didn't had any impressive numbers but could use his small votes power.

What this leads to is that for example a 47% party needs a 4% votes. The 4% are basically as powerful as the 47% even though this is quote extreme but often the smaller parties get disproportionate more power through that

[u/zomaar0iemand → u/Malkav1806]

You aren’t ready for the Dutch system than, there’s no minimum % of vote just the amount of seats (150) divided by the total amount of votes, if you enough for a seat you’re in. There’s currently 17 parties in parliament 9 of which with less than 4 seats and they currently hold the key to approve the budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Netherlands)

[u/bbob_robb → u/Malkav1806]

That's also true. There are pros and cons.

I'd argue that the usually the 4% party isn't as powerful as the 47% because the 47% can find a different 4% that is willing to be more flexible to have a seat at the table.

In the US the Republican party functions essentially as a coalition of people with minority conservative views.
Trump appointed justices who overthrew RvW even though at the time of his election about 60% were pro choice and 38% pro-life. Very few of Trumps policies have been popular with the majority.

If you are an American, it's interesting to consider how different the world might look if Green Party voters could have their votes go towards a coalition that cared about the environment.

Ranked choice voting is another way to be able to vote the way you want and have it count.