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15 Elul 5764 - September 1, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Shema Yisrael Torah Network

Opinion & Comment
Politica

by E. Rauchberger

Party at a Crossroads

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's defeat in the Likud Convention two weeks ago came as no surprise. Before the party referendum on the disengagement plan he declared the results would be binding, and then went back on his word, but this time he announced in advance that the vote would not obligate him to adopt a certain course in the coalition negotiations. Instead he made clear he would do as he pleases -- for "the good of the nation" of course.

Unlike with the referendum, this time the Sharon camp organized full steam. His supporters, led by his son Omri, made every effort to win the vote and to spare the Prime Minister from a second consecutive defeat, but to no avail. It seems the forces opposing him, i.e. Binyamin Netanyahu and Silvan Shalom, were too big and powerful.

A few high-level ministers such as Mofaz, Olmert, Livnat and Livni stood by his side, but in today's Likud this is not enough.

Rather than coming out against Sharon publicly Netanyahu kept a low profile, quietly saying his stance on bringing in Labor, which opposes his economic program, was well-known. This was enough to let his supporters know how the boss expected them to vote.

Silvan Shalom took a big gamble and won. Once considered Sharon's leading supporter, this time Shalom went against him and relations between the two reached a new low. Had Sharon won, Shalom's future at the top of Likud ranks would have been in jeopardy. Now, however, even Sharon realizes he won't be able to throw Shalom out of the government entirely. If he wants to remove him from the Foreign Ministry to make room for Peres, he will have to compensate him with another respectable portfolio consistent with his standing in the party.

After taking a beating for the second time, Sharon will invariably try to figure out how he lost his party's backing despite broad public support. Inevitably, he will reach the conclusion that if he wants to win in the future he needs either Shalom or Netanyahu on his side.

The Likud now stands at a crossroads. It is a party that could definitely form a rift and a party whose decisions are losing significance.

Questions in the Knesset

According to Knesset regulations, when MKs submit questions ministers must take the Knesset podium within 21 days to provide answers. They can also request a second 21-day extension and then one week more if necessary.

In practice, government ministers are in no rush to reply. Sometimes they answer months later when the matter has become so irrelevant that addressing it elicits bursts of laughter.

MKs claim almost none of the ministers bother to respond to questions in a timely fashion. Some say that by the time they receive an answer they have forgotten that they even submitted a question. Now MKs are saying the time has come to rectify the situation.

One proposal was to impose sanctions against ministers who do not provide answers on time, such as not allowing them to raise topics during plenum sessions or to ban them from proposing legislation for a certain period of time.

"The MKs often do not have information on what takes place in the government ministries," explains one Knesset member. "The questions are an essential means of communication and disclosure between the Knesset and the government, and that makes them so critical for the sake of democracy in order to carry out improvements and transformation in this institution."

Knesset Chairman Reuven Rivlin also has contentions regarding the lackadaisical attitude towards questions, but for a totally different reason. Rivlin says that when the ministers arrive at the plenum to reply, the MKs generally do not take the trouble to come and hear the answer, which just gets dictated directly into the protocols. Rivlin maintains this is an act of scorn by the MKs toward the ministers and the parliamentary tool known as the "question," for it precludes the possibility of holding a debate on the subject through follow-up questions.

Not only are the replies long in coming but in most cases they are also late in the day, when the majority of MKs are no longer in the building. Rivlin hopes to rectify this by giving questions higher preference in the daily agenda, scheduling them for 4:00 p.m. when the Knesset is generally full, thereby resurrecting the institution of "questions," which once held a place of honor in the Israeli parliamentary system and was used by MKs as a key tool.


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