Elections Take 2: Game Theory analysis

It's election time, take 2. For those who have joined us late, here's a TL;DR of the situation:

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

Ok, here's a little more detail:

Israel had elections on 9 April 2019. Even though the "right wing" bloc had comfortably enough seats to form a government, Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beitenu) decided that he would not sit in any government with the Haredi parties. His 5 seats were required for a majority, so Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu could not form a coalition without involving parties to his left, and none of those parties were interested. So rather than allowing Benny Gantz of Kachol Lavan (Blue & White) to have a chance at forming a coalition, Netanyahu had the 21st Knesset dissolve itself, and new elections were called for 17 September.

Netanyahu was hoping that the outcome of the next election will make it easier for him to form a coalition. So, how's that working out so far? As it turns out, very well for Liberman, not so well for Netanyahu. As always, Israel is obsessed with polls, of which several get published every week. For the purposes of this discussion, I'll work with the poll showing the most optimistic numbers from Netanyahu's perspective, which I lifted off the Yisrael Hayom website:

Credit: Yisrael Hayom

This Channel 12 poll from 3 August shows Netanyahu with a total of 57 seats, if you exclude Yisrael Beitenu. And as I said, that's the most optimistic one for him. If the polls are accurate, Netanyahu still has no path to a right-wing coalition, unless Liberman suddenly decides that he's willing to climb down from his anti-Haredi tree. And why should he, seeing as his hardline stand seems to have literally doubled his support? No, Liberman has found what he thinks is a winning formula, and he will stick with it.

What about Gantz? Could he form a centre/left coalition? Here the answer is an even clearer No. His problem is the hate map among his prospective partners. It's like this: The Democratic Camp (heir to Meretz) won't sit with the Haredim. Nor will Liberman. And if there's anyone Liberman hates more than the Haredim, it's the Arabs. And even if he could be persuaded to sit with the Arabs, the United Arab List is too stuck in their anti-Zionist rejectionism, and under their current leadership, will not join any Israeli government. Gantz's optimal non-conflicting coalition is B&W, Labour, Shas, and UTJ, for a grand total of 50 seats. It's not happening for him.

So, back to Netanyahu - how else could he form a coalition? Well, logically speaking, if he can't do it with parties to his right, then he'll have to turn to his left. He has two realistic options here: B&W and Labour. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

B&W is closer to Likud politically than Labour. A Likud/B&W coalition could potentially form a government without involving any smaller parties. If they need to bring in anyone else, Ayelet Shaked would be the obvious choice. Not Liberman, because I suspect Netanyahu would want to punish him for getting us all into the mess in the first place. Plus, he's shown himself to be an unreliable coalition partner in the past.

The biggest problem with B&W is that they will come with a big asking price, most likely a rotation deal for Prime Minister. And Netanyahu most certainly does not want to give up his job. That will be a deal breaker, in my opinion.

Labour, on the other hand, has embarrassingly little bargaining power, and cannot come with huge demands. If they ask too much, they will get nothing. I can easily see a situation where Netanyahu offers Amir Peretz some obscure post like the Welfare Ministry, and maybe something else peripheral like Agriculture for one of his cronies, in order to sit in the government. Peretz has two choices: a nice ministerial salary to see him comfortably into his retirement, or the glorious distinction of being the leader of the smallest faction in the Opposition. Whichever path he chooses, Labour will kick him out as leader before the next election (as appears to be their custom), so he really has nothing to lose. He'll come up with some rationalization about why he's joining a right-wing/Haredi government, and jump on the gravy train, as befits a good socialist. And that is Netanyahu's path to 61.

Now, you might think we're done here. But this is just where the fun begins. It's time to play Rational Pirates! BUWAHAHAHAHAAA!

Arrr! Shiver me timbers!

Of course, I'm referring to the famous Pirate Game, and if you don't know what that is, you should visit the link. I'm casting Netanyahu and Gantz as the Rational Pirates in our story.

Netanyahu knows he has a path to 61, as described above. But it has its problems. He needs five parties, including his own Likud, in his coalition, they all have their agendas pulling in different directions, and any one of the other four could bring down the government at the drop of a hat. Make that five other parties, since Yamina is just a technical bloc, and once they're in the Knesset they can function independently as the New Right and Bayit Yehudi. Running a government that is constantly beholden to the demands of five other coalition partners will not be easy. Wouldn't it be nice if he could just have one big partner--Blue & White--and not have to bother with those pesky little nudnik parties? If necessary, he could just pull in one other small party, maybe New Right, maybe Bayit Yehudi, to make his 61.

But Gantz wants a rotating Prime Minister position! "Well," Netanyahu can tell him, "I don't need you to form a government. I already have my path to 61, with Labour. But I'd prefer to work with you. We're not that far apart on most issues of substance, and together we can make a coalition that is not beholden to the whims of smaller parties, for the greater good of Israel! Rotating premiership is off the table, but you can have the Defense Ministry and even the Foreign Ministry. Of course, if you'd prefer to be the Leader of the Opposition instead for the next four or five years, that's fine...but chaval al hazman..."

Now Gantz has a quandary. He's made a lot of pronouncements about refusing to join a coalition with Netanyahu. But this really is a great opportunity to form the government that Middle Israel desperately wants. Free from the political demands of the Left and Right fringes; unencumbered by the budgetary needs of the Haredim. How will history remember him? As yet another Opposition leader who never made any impact? Or as the hero who put aside his personal differences with his political opponents, for the greater good?

Gantz nods sagely, then extends his hand to Netanyahu. "You've got a deal," he says. And this is how a coalition is formed between Blue & White, and maybe one other small party.

Alternative scenario: Zehut and Otzma Yehudit pass the threshold

All the above assumes that the smaller ring-wing parties, Zehut and Otzma Yehudit, fail to pass the 3.25% voting threshold. But what if they do? They immediately arrive on the scene with 4 seats each. Those 8 seats will come more or less proportionately off the rest of the parties. Let's say everyone else on that poll loses 1 seat, other than the Arab List (just for argument's sake). Now Netanyahu technically has a path to 61 with just right-wing parties: 29 Likud, 11 Yemina, 6 Shas, 7 UTJ, 4 Zehut, 4 Otzma. But it doesn't really change much from our previous scenario, where Labour filled in the gap; in fact, the optics of forming a coalition with the Kahanists are so bad that Netanyahu would arguably prefer to have Labour in the coalition rather than Otzma. Plus, he hates Moshe Feiglin of Zehut. So it's back to the Rational Pirates game, with pretty much the same inputs as before.

So it seems all roads lead to the same outcome: a Likud/Blue & White coalition, with Netanyahu as Prime Minister.

Of course, anything could happen in the next month, and the seat distribution could be wildly different from current polling. We'll take a look at that after 17 September. See you then!

Credit: Jpost

Silent Thunder

Aliza Bloch (credit: Arutz 7)

I posted a couple weeks ago my prediction that Moshe Abutbul would win by a landslide. And  I was wrong, big time. At this writing, it's a cliffhanger, with Aliza Bloch looking likely to win once absentee ballots are counted.

So, analysis time. Where did I go wrong? My prediction was based on the persuasion principle, that calls to identity are more effective than reasoning. Bloch was campaigning based on her claims that the current management was incompetent and she would do a better job, while Abutbul simply played the "Daas Torah" card, i.e. "I am Haredi and if you are Haredi you must vote for me because the Gedolim say so." I saw that argument as basically irrefutable, and once it was set in stone that it was now a mitzva to vote for Abutbul, he could not lose; no True Believer could vote for Bloch with a clear conscience.

And that was my mistake. I thought there were only two options: Abutbul or Bloch. But there was a third option: simply to stay at home.

(credit: Times of Israel)

My first clue that this was happening came while I was counting votes at a station in the Haredi suburb of Heftziba. The vote count was 367 for Abutbul and 8 for Bloch. That doesn't look very impressive, until you look at the turnout: there were about 780 registered voters in that precinct. For an area that usually turns out 70-80% or more, when you get under 50% of your voters showing up, on a public holiday, and 65% of the rest of the city came to have their say, that's not apathy; that's a protest.

On the one hand, I can still claim a modicum of rightness in my original assessment; the vast majority of Haredim in Beit Shemesh would not actively disobey the instructions they were told emanated from their religious leaders by voting for the other candidate. But the simmering discontent, while not actually bubbling over, translated into a massive, passive no-show, which I contend was the single biggest factor in Bloch's victory. Look at the numbers, extrapolated from my polling station: had the 50% turnout been 75% instead, that's an increase of 50% of Abutbul's votes. So say what you want about maybe a couple thousand Haredim who voted for Bloch, or about a genuinely great get-out-the-vote effort from Bloch's team in the rest of Beit Shemesh; if those 25% of Haredi voters who were supposed to have been in Abutbul's pocket had shown up, that would have been at least an extra 10,000 votes for Abutbul, and a landslide.

(credit: PhysicsWorld.com)

Let that sink in. Ten thousand protest no-shows. That is what I call silent thunder. And the message, as I read it, is twofold. First, it is a stinging slap in the face to the askanim who regard the Haredi population as their obedient foot soldiers who will do their bidding unquestioningly. It says, "We are not yet ready for outright rebellion. But if you try to shove your decisions down our throats, and you don't provide us with the services we deserve, then you are asking too much."

Second, it is an implicit probation for Aliza Bloch. It says, "Don't expect us to be excited about you becoming mayor. We let you win, and you have a chance to prove yourself over the next five years. Do good, and we will let you win again; maybe we'll even support you. But beware: if you put a foot out of line, we will flick you like a fly out of the mayor's office."

Personally, I don't know if I've ever been happier to be wrong. I wish Mayor Bloch wisdom, understanding, blessing and every success in her new job, and hope she will over-perform so much  that in five years' time, even the Daas Torah thumpers will be behind her.

Congratulations, and good luck!

(credit: Times of Israel)

Coalition Predictions Scorecard - and more

In a previous posting, Post-Election Game Theory, I laid out my predictions for how the coalition would look.  With the new government finally having been sworn in, after way more haggling than anyone expected, let's go back now and see how I did, only mentioning areas where I specifically went out on a limb.

1. Tachlis: I predicted a government composed of Likud, Yesh Atid, Bayit Yehudi and Kadima.  I was out by one: the Tzipi Livni Movement instead of Kadima.  (Or is that in addition to Kadima?  Nobody in the media seems to know - or care - whether Kadima is in or out of the coalition.  Me neither.)  
2. Labor: despite Netanyahu's sincere efforts to woo Yecimovich into the coalition, she stuck by her guns, as I predicted.
3. Bayit Yehudi: despite some very bad blood between them (apparently worse than I thought originally), Bibi finally had to bring Bennett into the government.  He really didn't want to, but like I said, the numbers just didn't work otherwise.
4. Shas: could conceivably have overcome their incompatibility issues with Yesh Atid by looking for compromises, but instead chose to dig in to their trenches, and now find themselves with no say in how the "sharing the burden" debate plays out.  Merubeh tafasta, lo tafasta - try get too much, and you end up with nothing.  I wish I had been wrong about that prediction, but I wasn't.
5. UTJ, while less strident in their rhetoric than Shas, also chose the route of conflict.  Pity, but also a clear call.
6. Tzippi Livni: this is the only one that completely blindsided me.  I was totally gobsmacked when Netanyahu cut the first deal with Livni, especially with her as lead negotiator with the Palestinians.  I think he thinks putting her into that position is going to teach her some stark lessons in reality, as in "Good luck with that!" - but frankly I'm quite afraid that she will be able to do Israel a lot of damage from that position. But given that she was included, it makes Kadima's piddly 2 mandates completely inconsequential, and therefore wasteful to include them in the coalition.

So it wasn't a 100% score, but still not too bad.  And from that position, I'm going to make a few more predictions.

1. Tzippi Livni won't last long in the government.  She can't.  Her pet issue is making a peace agreement with the Palestinians, and she will be unable to do so, for any number of reasons.  Either the Palestinians will continue to refuse flat-out to return to negotiations and continue on the unilateral track, or they will only come back to that table on condition that Israel in principle agrees to roll over and die as a precondition for restarting talks.  Livni will probably accept any preconditions they want, but she will be overruled by the rest of the coalition - or at least, I hope so.  Furthermore, with Bayit Yehudi controlling the Construction Ministry, and Moshe Yaalon as Minister of Defense, sooner or later Livni is going to proclaim that peace is just not achievable while we continue to "provoke" the Palestinians by allowing the residents of Efrat to enclose their verandas and instructing the army to actually defend themselves against Molotov cocktails rather than running away, and she will resign in a huff, doing as much damage as possible in the international arena on her way out, and try her hand (again) at Opposition politics.  I don't think we'll have to wait a year for that to happen, maybe as little as six months.  
2. The burden will be shared, and it will be done intelligently and fairly.  (Now that's going out on a limb!)  Shas and UTJ are spoiling for a fight; they will threaten that all the Haredim will go to jail rather than serve in the army; and they will be disappointed.  There will be no imprisonments, no arrests, not even skirmishes.  The government will simply enact a set of financial rules that will give attractive economic benefits to people who complete the army or other national service, not much for people who are officially exempted (e.g. new immigrants), and an extra tax on people who refuse to serve.  The Haredim will not be given the option of being public heroes and dramatically going to jail; instead they will have the much harder choice between doing national service and getting the concomitant economic benefits, or refusing and quietly going the long haul with an onerous tax burden.  Faced with this dilemma, I believe the rank and file will vote with their feet, and despite the pashkevillin that will be plastered over every vertical surface in Mea Shearim and Bnei Brak, screaming about how this is a milchemes mitzva and a chillul Hashem to do any kind of national service, a very large number of Haredim will go along with the new system.  It will certainly beat the indentured poverty into which the old system forces them.
3. The government can fall in one of two ways: either Yesh Atid falls off the Left flank, or Bayit Yehudi falls off the Right.  The only way I can think of that Yair Lapid will be sufficiently outraged as to walk out of the government would be if the government fails to implement a "sharing the burden" plan.  If he ever does quit the government, it won't hurt Bibi, because the Haredi parties will be lined up to take his place - and that might result in the undoing of said plan.  Lapid is in this coalition for the long haul, and his negotiating power is weak, because 19 mandates notwithstanding, he is replaceable.
4. Bennett, on the other hand, is less constrained by such considerations, because he truly is irreplaceable   If Bibi ventures too far Left, Bennett can threaten to bring down the government.  The Haredim will not replace them in a coalition with Lapid.  And around 75% of the Likud MKs themselves will agree with Bennett.  Unlike the 2005 Disengagement government, the vast majority of the Likud MKs are now strong ideologues who will themselves vote no-confidence in the government if Bibi tries to do a Sharon on us.  Even if Bibi tries to get Labor involved, it just can't work out.  Result: no more insane concessions to the Palestinians, and Tzippi Livni will quit the coalition (see above).  So Bennett really is sitting pretty.
5. As a result of the above considerations, absent any "black swan" events, I'm calling that this coalition will see out its full term of office.  That will be a first!

All told, I'm pretty optimistic about this government.  The common thread between the major coalition parties is that they're security wise, free market supporters with a non-coercive approach.  I think on the whole things are looking up for Israel.

Your thoughts?