cannabisnews.com: Gamblers, Marijuana Users Among Parties so Far!





Gamblers, Marijuana Users Among Parties so Far!
Posted by FoM on January 20, 1999 at 14:34:07 PT

 JERUSALEM There's the ``Casino'' party for gamblers, and the ``Green Leaf'' ticket for Marijuana fans -- not to be confused with the ``Greens'' environmentalist party. 
By Wednesday, 37 parties had signed on for Israel's May 17 election -- and there are still eight weeks left to register. All an Israeli needs to register a political party for the May election is 100 certified voter signatures and a $12,000 filing fee. Parties need to break a 1.5 percent threshold -- about 50,000 votes -- to win one of the 120 seats in Israel's parliament, the Knesset. That becomes a siren call each election to special interests, anti-establishmentarians or just plain grudge-holders. ``Small parties can succeed,'' said Moni Mordechai, a spokesman for ``Meimad,'' a party representing the interests of the self-described ``moderate'' religious. In addition to Casino and Green Leaf -- each of them hoping to legalize their respective pastimes -- one-issue parties include a Romanian immigrants' group that wants its own TV channel and parties that claim to represent pensioners and husbands. When asked to explain why votes should go to single issues, the parties say their causes actually reach wider than their issues. ``If all the heroin users in Israel and the world would switch to cannabis, our situation would be a lot better,'' Green Leaf leader Boaz Vachtel explained on Israel Radio. Experience shows that single-issue parties don't stand much of a chance of getting in, Israeli political analyst Hanan Kristal said Wednesday. Instead, he predicted greater success for anti-establishment parties that include more than one platform. ``Peretz can cross the threshold,'' he said, referring to union leader Amir Peretz' social welfare party, ``One People,'' announced on Wednesday. Kristal also said a party founded and named for Israeli cosmetics magnate Pnina Rosenblum could make it into the next parliament. Rosenblum's rags-to-riches story has resonated among Israel's working classes, and she has a detailed women's rights platform. In the past, memorable small parties that didn't make the cut included a transcendental meditation group, and a party that simply advised voters: ``Don't Give a Damn.'' The small parties especially flourished in 1996, when for the first time voters were allowed to split their ballot between the prime minister and party. That led many Israelis to cast a vote for national and security preferences in choosing a prime minister, but choose a more special interest with the Knesset vote. The two main parties, Likud and Labor, lost a third of their vote to small parties in 1996. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- who had strongly backed direct elections for the prime minister -- became its victim when he was forced to manage an unwieldy, mostly hard-line coalition. His inability to muster backing for his peace agreements giving more land to Palestinians led to elections 18 months earlier than scheduled. Legislators from Likud and Labor have now united behind a bill repealing direct elections, but the bill would not affect the May election. 
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