The Public Purse and the Private Campaign: Political Finance in Israel

Abstract

One of the most interesting issues in the study of electoral campaigns is the effect of financial accommodations on equality of opportunities and maintenance of fair rules of the electoral game. This is especially so in polities which already have established systems of party and campaign finance. It should be kept in mind that one of the strongest arguments for adopting public funding was that adequate financial support from unbiased and neutral sources (the state) would free parties and candidates from overdependence on organized or public interests who aspire to get easy and quick access to decision makers in return for their political contributions. Such reasoning also stood behind the introduction of public funding to political parties in Israel. Relative to the number of voters nation wide, the (reported) public grants allocated to political parties in Israel are the highest in the world. In the national elections of 1992, the parties received direct state subsidies equivalent to $10.75 for each individual who gave her/his vote to any of the parties. Amongst the other Western democracies, Germany has the highest average public reimbursement with about $3 per voter.1 Israeli political parties also get respectable monthly payments. In October 1995, parties were granted about $17,000 a month for each elected Knesset member. In the case of a party with forty-four Knesset members such as the Labor Party, this meant a monthly income of $750,000 (or about $9,000,000 in annual public financing in an off-election year). Until 1994 generous subsidies were granted with minimal requirements of public report and similarly minimal accountability of parties' internal financial affairs. In fact, for many years, the parties successfully resisted giving