Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Election Analysis - The left-right split is outdated

The press has been highlighting the fact that there is essentially a tie between the left wing and right wing bloc, 60 seats each.

The truth is that the whole left-right split is outdated and doesn't really apply in this election. Out of the 60 seats that supposedly make up the left wing block, 19 belong to Lapid and 15 to Labor. Neither one of them  campaigned on the traditional left wing issue, the peace process. In fact, both campaigned on economic issues and that is what this election was really about. The 2 parties that did focus their campaigns on the peace process were Meretz and Livni's party, they got a grand total of 12 seats, 6 each.  Additionally 12 of the 60 left wing seats are from the Arab parties who have never been in the government.

The fact is that it is incorrect to call Yesh Atid a left wing party. Yesh Atid is a centrist party which garnered a lot of right wing votes not on the strength of it's diplomatic plan (it basically had none) but on the strength of economic issues and שוויון בנטל.

I would split the electorate as follows:
1. Old fashioned left - main platform is the peace process 12 seats (Meretz and Livni)
2. Socialists - Main platform is economic socialism Labor 15, Meretz 6 (secondary platform)
3. Capitalists - Main platform is economic capitalistic reform (e.g. more competition, privatization, etc.) Likud 31, Yesh Atid 19, Bayit Hayehudi 11 (secondary platform)
4. Right wing - No Palestinian state, settlements etc. Likud 31, Bayit Hayehudi 11.
5. Charedim - 18
6. Arabs - 11

Based on my definition above the big winner in this election is capitalism 61 - 21.

2 comments:

Adam Goldberg said...

So what kind of government do you believe will be formed?

Unknown said...

You're right about the "right" vs. "left" issue. The concept has changed so much that it doesn't really hold water, except to the Americans for whom everything has to do with "what are they going to do about the peace process."