Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Likud party corruption
"It started with the primary elections in the Likud party. They were conducted on a pure business basis. Since the public opinion polls promised the Likud a third of the 120 Knesset seats, it was worthwhile to invest money. The politicians paid the vote-traders, some of them known criminals, who hired more than a hundred thousand "new members". These stuffed the 3000-men Central Committee. The newly elected Committee members sold their votes to the highest bidders among the various candidates for the Likud Knesset list."

This corruption exposes a major flaw of the list system of proportional representation, that the party sets the order of the list and the voters have no choice in the matter. An important feature of Hare-Clark Proportional Representation system which should not be lost or compromised is the right of the voter to choose among the candidates put up by each party, in other words the right to vote for individuals and not for parties. 'List' and 'above the line' voting systems should be abolished.

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