Israeli Public Opinion on Moving Up the Election Date
Daat 2, December 2012
- Written By: Chanan Cohen
- Publication Date:
- Cover Type: Online Booklet
- Number Of Pages: 16 Pages
- Center: Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research
Israeli public opinion on early elections, as evidenced by the findings of surveys conducted by IDI's Guttman Center over the years.
Are early elections evidence of governmental instability?
Recently, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced early elections for the 19th Knesset. An analysis of public opinion surveys conducted by the Guttman Center over the years revealed the following:
It seems that the Israeli public has a complex view of early elections: In the eyes of the Israeli public, political stability as manifested in elections that are held at their regularly scheduled times is not a high value. They are willing to accept early elections if the anticipated benefit of moving the elections forward is that corruption will be addressed, an "election economy" will be avoided, or the move will contribute to greater political stability in the future.
In general, public support for early elections tends to increase the longer the government has been in power. Not surprisingly, people who vote for the opposition support early elections more than those who vote for the coalition parties.