For the citizens of Israel, the coming day of election is a holiday. For their representatives, it is the day of judgment. In the ballot, the fates of politicians is determined and it remains the best measure to keep them working for the citizens instead of other interests. Corrupt and failed politicians like Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan or Venezuela’s Maduro remain in office only thanks to violent oppression of any home-borne opposition.
Nevertheless, the general elections are still far from being a perfect mechanism.
First, politicians and skilled advisers know how to divest the public discourse from the main issues, using “spins” and other creative and well-funded distractions.
Politicians drag the electorate into tabloid-stylized questions like “how long would Benny Gantz keep quiet?” or “Who will be No. 2 on Yair Lapid’s list?” or into issues that the public cannot influence with its vote, such as “did Netanyahu break the law?” By doing so, they avoid dealing with issues that shape our daily lives, such as the state of the health and education systems, public transportation and traffic jams, or the cost of living.
Second, since we vote approximately every four years, we refrain from dealing with the most dramatic issues affecting our future.
The oceans are warming faster than climate reports have previously suggested, with numbers coming in 40-50% warmer than the last UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from only five years ago, according to a new research published this month in Science Magazine. Sea waters capture most of the heat that is accumulating following greenhouse gas emissions and soaring temperatures are already eradicating much of the marine biosphere (including corals, fish and essential flora).
On another matter, a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute concludes that as many as 800 million jobs could be lost worldwide to automation by the year 2030. It’s unclear what awaits for the millions of drivers, telemarketing workers, tax advisers, and other workers who will become part of the “useless class,” as they are described by historian Yuval Noah Harari.
These are just two examples of the trends which require our government to act, as well as forge closer international cooperation. It is evident that the real danger to our future is no longer what we humans do to one another, but what we are doing to our world.
BUT ADDRESSING those intricate matters is easily postponable in the general elections. If we don’t fix global warming and climate change in the next couple of years – the environment won’t completely perish. If we don’t find immediately solutions for the rapid substitution of human workers by robots and computers – the job market won’t completely crash. On the local level, even if we don’t choose between separation and annexation of the West Bank – it’s safe to assume that the Israeli army and our security forces will manage to sustain the status quo for a couple more years without the outbreak of a violent intifada or a full-blown war.
According to Behavioral Economics Prof. Dan Ariely, had we voted in the ballots on the policies for the next century instead of the coming hundred years – the public discussion over those issues would have most likely been far more serious.
Unlike the general elections, the primary election that will be held in the Likud and Labor parties is an opportunity to raise those issues and force politicians to address them. Primaries at Likud will be held on February 5 and for Labor on the 11th. Until then, all candidates – senior and junior alike – will be attentive to every question and request. Party members, in turn, are particularly experienced and engaged citizens. They can easily see beyond the campaigns that advertising agencies run for the different parties and they have a special responsibility to demand answers to the big questions of our age.
Solutions can differ in accordance with each party’s ideological foundations. Free market fundamentalists on the Right would support tax breaks and incentives for companies that would invest in environmental technologies, while those on the Left would rather invest in government projects for greener infrastructures. Either way, these problems must not remain unresolved.
The general elections on April 9 will revolve on the question of “Yes Bibi!” or “No Bibi!” which will become meaningless in a decade or two. The coming primaries in Likud and Labor are an opportunity to make sure that at least the members of Knesset from the two parties will be committed to deal with the truly important issues.
The writer is a social activist, a member of the Labor Party, and a PhD candidate.