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Friday April 4, 1997

Israeli lawmakers working to repeal direct elections

SARAH HONIG
Jerusalem Post Service

Several key Likud and Labor Party figures are taking steps to repeal the new law allowing Israelis to directly elect the prime minister.

Legislators Sunday announced the formation of an extraparliamentary group seeking to return to a system by which voters elect party lists, with the lead candidate becoming prime minister.

The Likud's Moshe Arens, a former defense minister and U.S. envoy, will head the group. Also taking part from the Likud is former minister Moshe Nissim and Uzi Landau. Labor is represented by Yossi Beilin, Ephraim Sneh and Moshe Shahal.

The direct election law came into effect last summer. It was backed by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and opposed by Shimon Peres.

The Likud was against direct elections, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke party discipline to vote for it in the last Knesset.

"The direct election system is dangerous and even many of those who had ardently campaigned for it are now changing their minds," Arens said Sunday.

Beilin said, "The direct election law is one of the most terrible and utterly misleading pieces of legislation ever passed by the Knesset. It is antidemocratic."

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