“A great victory, a tremendous expression of confidence,” said Benjamin Netanyahu in his almost victory speech. “The people have spoken,” said Miri Regev when the sample forecast of 61 seats for the right-wing bloc was heard (Channel 13). Her colleague Danny Danon said: “The picture is very clear… a very clear statement” (ynet). “The trust of the people of Israel is in our way,” said Bezalel Smotrich, after the polls had predicted for him and his partners 13 to 15 seats. They are cited here not because they have ownership of this formula. They are its users on duty. There is little doubt that if the sample had given 61 to the blocker group, the blocker speakers would have used the same formula.
Benjamin Netanyahu at the Likud headquarters last night: “A great victory, a tremendous expression of confidence” / Photo: Reuters, AMMAR AWAD
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We keep hearing the “big victory” formula from a series of small winners in almost every democracy.
We saw something like this earlier this week in Brazil. The polls consistently predicted a massive victory for the leftist candidate, a lead of 15% or more. He did win, but by a much smaller margin, 51% compared to 49%. Yes, it is a majority, without a doubt, and the presidency of the winner is perfectly legitimate. But at the end of a terrible and terrible election campaign, against a background of unprecedented polarization, almost half of Brazilians are left behind, feeling cheated and rejected, gnashing their teeth and clenching their fists. This is a very dangerous result in a country without developed democratic traditions, which has always been rooted in a “strong man”.
Bolsonaro’s supporters angrily protest his election loss / Photo: Associated Press, Silvia Izquierdo
Protesters block main roads in Brazil as a protest against Bolsonaro’s loss / Photo: Associated Press, Silvia Izquierdo
Sweden, previously a model of broad consensus, has been ruled since last month by a right-wing bloc, at the center of which is a party with a neo-fascist past. This happens thanks to a three-seat majority in the parliament of 349. Outside there remains a very large left-wing bloc, which has set the tone in Swedish politics for a century.
What to do, you say? Losers have to accept the results. Of course, we must. That is not the point. The question is what is involved in receiving the results. It is clear that the results give the owners of the narrow victory the right to rule, according to their judgment. But is it true that democracy emerges from their argument for an unequivocal victory, when the victory is far from unequivocal?
Bush and Trump’s mandate
The history of the world changed, unknowingly, when 537 votes in the state of Florida gave the presidency to George Bush, Jr., in November 2000. He lost by a margin of half a million and more in the total number of votes.
Bush claimed a mandate, and used it to drag the US into two fateful wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US and the Western democracies (not to mention the Afghans and the Iraqis) are still paying the price for Bush’s mandate.
In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidential election, although he received almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The difference did bother him, but only in the sense that he came back and claimed that it was a “forgery”. There was no basis for this claim.
Donald Trump / Photo: Associated Press, Mark Humphrey
As far as Trump is concerned, he won a “great victory”, and “the American people have spoken”. Based on this claim, he rescinded US climate protection commitments, pulled it out of an important multinational trade agreement and tilted the Supreme Court far to the right by appointing ultra-conservative justices. He also refused to admit defeat four years later, encouraging the extremists whose supporters stormed the Congress House.
Could Bush and Trump have behaved differently? Could they declare victory, but admit its limitations and try their hand at reconciliation and creating a broad consensus? “Broad agreement” does not mean a formal coalition, and certainly does not mean unanimous agreement. Even the American system has a mechanism that encourages effort in favor of consensus. In the Senate, legislation in most cases requires a supermajority of 60 out of 100. A single party rarely has 60 seats. Only cooperation from both sides of the barrier thus enables legislation.
How to create consent
Generally, parliamentary democracies are a more suitable hotbed of broad consensus than presidential democracy. In the British, such agreements are mandatory, when the largest party does not obtain an absolute majority. This happened twice in the last 12 years, although only once in the 80 years preceding them. And then, in order to win a majority in parliament (which is not necessary for the actual establishment of the government), the winning party turns to junior partners. But such appeals are made through gritted teeth and do not express a serious attempt to broaden a base and compromise.
The German parliamentary system is more prone to broad agreements. She has no choice. No German party has won an absolute majority on its own since 1957. The result is coalition governments, which have never been ideologically unified.
It is hard to say where a consensus begins to form. Is it possible in a time of economic prosperity, as happened in Germany in the 1960s? Or is it naturally required during a severe economic crisis, as happened in Great Britain during the Great Depression 90 years ago, or during two world wars?
The reservation from a broad agreement concerns both ideological purity (the longing for what is now called in Israel a “narrow right-wing government”) and the practical consideration of the difficulty of reconciling contradictions and agreeing on a common path between adversaries. The Bennet-Lapid opposition government illustrated this difficulty. During the days of the “national Likud government”, in the three years after the Six Day War, the left used to accuse it of being a “national paralysis government”. And even if it is endowed with one central feature: inertia. During her time, the “creeping annexation” began, almost without intending to.
Friends around the table
Switzerland developed a formula for a permanent national unity government more than 60 years ago. It was given the catchy name “Magic Formula”.
The Swiss cabinet has only seven members (please don’t be too impressed, Switzerland has 26 cantons, and each of them has a separate government). The seven seats in the cabinet have been shared since 1959 between four political parties. Only once, 20 years ago, did the partition key change. In the absence of real competition for government positions, ministers serve for a long time, eight years on average, some even longer. This is possible, in part, because controversial questions are usually not placed on the cabinet table, but submitted to referendums.
The elected members of parliament in Switzerland take an oath in the parliament building after their election / Photo: Associated Press, Ruben Sprich
The advantage of the Swiss arrangement is that no party with 10% or more of the votes is left out. This arrangement eliminates competition between the parties, and competition is necessary for the democratic process; But it can be a source of harmony, up to a certain limit. What would happen if the ministries of transportation and health in the right-wing Israeli government were permanently given to the left? It is doubtful that the ideological purity would have been impaired, but it would have given a hint of interest in broadening the narrow base.
By the way, it is a long-standing tradition in the US that presidents allocate at least one seat in their cabinet to a representative of the defeated party. This does not oblige that party to support the president, but it sends an important message about openness and tolerance.
The great political challenge continues to be obtaining a majority in the elections. But the second political challenge is preventing the alienation of the losers. No victory is complete if it leaves nearly 50% of the population out.