Some 34 parties are getting set for elections on January 22, 2013.
Following the dissolution of Israel's Parliament or Knesset last October, electioneering campaigns have been going on ever since. Voters will on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 choose 120 new parliamentarians. The current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of the right-wing Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu Party is seen as the clear frontrunner.
Netanyahu, who is seeking a third term in office, has been portraying himself as a strongman able to make Israel a powerful nation. His campaign posters and billboards are dominated by the Hebrew word for strong, ‘hazak.’ A recent poll conducted by the Times of Israel showed that 43 per cent of respondents consider the economy as the most important issue in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Only 12 per cent of respondents, 23 per cent of right-wing voters and 2 per cent of left-wing voters, said they were concerned about Iran and its nuclear energy programme.
Speaking on November 5, 2012, Netanyahu said he was ready to order a strike on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. However, several current and former Israeli military and intelligence figures have come out against Netanyahu’s war rhetoric against Tehran, saying such a move will in fact be detrimental to the Israeli regime itself. Former Israeli Premier, Ehud Olmert, on January 11, 2013, strongly criticised Netanyahu for wasting billions of Shekels preparing what he described as futile war plans against Iran.
The upcoming elections will determine the composition of the 19th Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. Over 5.6 million voters are eligible to participate in next week’s national elections with every Israeli citizen aged 18 or older having the right to vote. Some 34 parties will compete in the election and the Prime Minister, who heads Israel’s government, will be chosen from among the members of the newly-elected Knesset. Israel has a multi-party system based on coalition governments as no party has ever won a majority of seats in a national election. Like the Knesset, the government also has a four-year term of office.
