Least exciting elections season ever. That is, unless Israeli MKs manage to screw Peres out of the Presidency again. Last time they elected a rapist instead of him, out of sheer spite. Just think about what they can do if they really put their minds to it.

President - Theoretically, this should not even be close. The President's job is to present Israel's public face to the country and to the world. Peres is the country's top diplomat by a distance that is frankly staggering to contemplate. Remember that part at the beginning of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is". That's how much better Peres is than however the second-best Israeli diplomat is. And yet - because Israeli politicians are vindictive, stupid, and all too often chosen by Labor primary voters (but we repeat ourselves), there's a chance Peres may lose in tomorrow's Knesset election.

Since we haven't had one of these in a while, let's review the rules: the President is elected by the Knesset, which is made up of 120 MKs. In order to be elected the President needs an absolute majority of 61 MKs. In the first round any party can put up a candidate to run. In this race Kadima's choice is Peres, Likud's choice is Reuven Rivlin, and Labor's choice is Collette Avital. If no candidate gets 61 votes in the first round, there's a runoff between the top two candidates. In this race, the runoff would be between Peres and Rivlin - which is probably what's going to happen. Although we may have finally found a way to make the Gil party not totally worthless - if they can put Peres over the top in the first round, that would be truly awesome. It wouldn't make up for how they stole Kadima's mandates, weakened the party electorally, forced Olmert to give the Defense portfolio to Peretz, and failed to win Lebanon II fast enough. But it'd be something.

Labor primary - It's happening today. Originally polls showed Ami Ayalon ahead, but then polls showed Barak ahead, and today Ha'aretz is just leaving it at "wide open". This is a run-off vote. In the original vote beat Barak by more than 3 points. Then he committed what we think objective observers would concede is a rather stupid mistake - he sided with Amir Peretz, who is wildly unpopular. As is wont to happen when one throws one's lot in with unpopular people, Ayalon saw himself slipping in the polls. On the other hand, Peretz is a ballot stuffing union thug - in the metaphorical sense only, of course - so maybe it was smart.

Whoever wins will probably get the Defense Ministry for the next couple of months until the Olmert government resigns in disgrace, then they'll face Bibi and Kadima's candidate (Mofaz?) in the next election. There were murmurs yesterday or the day before about Olmert offering Ayalon Finance instead of Defense, but Ayalon indicated subtly that said offer would be unacceptable.

References:
* Pensioners back Peres for presidency ahead of Wednesday vote [Ha'aretz]
* Tension builds in Labor as Barak, Ayalon vie for top spot [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Israeli Politics Roundup - 2007-05-07 - It's Futile No Confidence Motion Day In the Knesset
* Israeli Politics Roundup - 2007-05-08 - Yeah, So That Happened
* Pensioners back Peres for presidency ahead of Wednesday vote