Israel
Israeli MKs reject bid to install cameras in polling stations
Knesset committee move comes hours after Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet approved the measures on Sunday
September 9, 2019 13:48
Knesset committee move comes hours after Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet approved the measures on Sunday
September 9, 2019 13:48A law that would have allowed Israeli political parties to film inside polling stations in next week’s election has been turned down during a Knesset sitting.
The so-called “cameras law”, which was approved unanimously during a cabinet meeting on Sunday, did not receive enough votes in committee on Monday for it to be considered by all MKs.
The law was part of a wider campaign in recent weeks by Likud and some of its allies after they complained about irregularities in over a hundred polling stations at the April election.
But the central election commission, which reviewed the complaints, found only five cases warranted a police investigation.
Furthermore, the commission’s chief executive Orly Ades said that the alleged fraud had actually benefited Likud and that, contrary to the complaints that the fraud had been committed mainly in Arab areas and had harmed the right-wing parties, only two of the stations were Arab.
The commission had blocked an previous attempt in April by Likud to position a thousand of its activists in predominantly Arab polling stations with hidden cameras.
But this did not stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting that there was a risk of the election result being “stolen,” and insisting that the cameras law be passed before next Tuesday’s election.
On Sunday, the cabinet voted to fast-track the law, despite legal advice from both the attorney-general and the Knesset’s legal advisor that changing the electoral law on the eve of election was highly problematic, given the parties and the commission had little time to prepare.
President Reuven Rivlin also weighed in against the proposed law for similar reasons.
Ultimately, the law will not be passed before the election because the Arrangements Committee, which is the only body that can push a law quickly through the Knesset on the eve of election, could not muster the necessary majority.
The vote was 12-12 due to the absence of Roy Folkman, a Kulanu member who did not follow his party leader into joining Likud, and the opposition of Yisrael Beiteinu’s Yulia Melinovsky.
Ms Melinovsky was acting on orders of her party’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, who had initially supported the cameras law, but changed his mind on Monday morning, saying he would not allow “the election to be overseen by Netanyahu’s private militia”.
The failure of the law is not necessarily bad news for Mr Netanyahu as many believe that his real intention was not necessarily to change the way the elections are monitored, but to dominate the news agenda in the crucial days before the vote and establish a narrative of Arab fraud and election “theft” to motivate right-wingers to go and vote.
