Low turnout expected in Israeli elections
The 2013 Israeli government promised reforms in education, transport, housing prices and cost of living, but the early elections set for March 17 have cut short the formulation of these reforms, disappointing large parts of the public.
When the public heard the surprising news Dec. 2 about the disbanding of the third Netanyahu government less than two years after its inception in March 2013, Uria Levy, a 28-year-old resident of Tel Aviv, decided to express his own little protest. He filmed himself for a short clip in which he looks straight into the camera and says: “I, Uria Levy, pledge not to vote in the 2015 elections.” This sentence succinctly expresses the sense of growing despair regarding Israel’s political leadership, as reflected in the town square of the social media.
The Facebook page of Yair Lapid, the finance minister dismissed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tells the same story. Less than two years ago, it was filled with hope and the promise of a new kind of politics; this week it was filled with the sounds of his supporters’ despair, as though he had suddenly grown old by the unfulfilled promise in less than half a term in office.
While the 2013 elections signaled a tendency toward growing political involvement by young people, a fact expressed by a slight increase in voter participation — from 64.7% in 2009 to 67.7%, voter participation this time is expected to be low. Opinion surveys indicate that the public does not understand why the government was disbanded and blames Netanyahu and Lapid.
There was a reason for the handsome voter participation figure of 2013 after years of steady decline: the social protest that burst forth in the summer of 2011, bringing hundreds of thousands of Israelis out into the streets to demand a more just and fair economy, gave back to the public a sense that it has the power to affect change. The massive protests changed the public discourse. They raised to the top of the national agenda peoples’ desire for a dignified life even in a state challenged by defense issues, and deeply affected the elections and their results.
