The Likud party crashed in Israel’s last elections, in 2006, after being in power since 2001. In 2006, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left the Likud party to form the new Kadima (“forward”) party, and his old party’s power had fallen. Likud has led the opposition for two years, and today seems to be leading the polls, but the gap isn’t large and there may be changes before election day.
These elections were necessitated by the resignation of current interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, following pressure from members of his coalition government after Olmert was apparently implicated in several criminal investigations. His replacement from the Kadima party, current Foreign Minister Mrs. Tzipi Livni, was not able to form a new government during the allotted time; thus these new elections were called.
Israel’s has a parliamentarian regime—citizens vote for parties competing for the 120 seats of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Then the Israeli president assigns the head of the biggest party (usually) the task of forming a government.
In Israel, the prime minister is the top executive while the president has more of a ceremonial role. So far no party has managed to gain more than a majority of seats; thus Israel’s governments have always been coalition governments.
