Israeli Election Economics

On Tuesday. it is elections in Israel. Most likely, Benjamin Netanyahu's "right-wing" Likud Party will become the biggest party and lead the new government, though it is not entirely certain as many "right-wing" voters might be tempted to vote for Avigdor Lieberman's nationalist "Israel Beitenu" (Hebrew for "Israel is our home") party who haven't ruled out cooperating with the centrist Kadima party.

Because of the unfortunate security situation illustrated by the recent Gaza fighting, the election campaign has been dominated by issues of that kind. And foreign media reporting of the campaign have been even more exclusively focused on that issue.

But there is also another aspect, namely the division on economic policy. As is discussed in this Jerusalem Post article, there is also a big division on economic policy. Netanyahu's Likud is the most consistently market oriented party (Netanyahu's strong free market leanings have been discussed previously on this blog here) while Labor is the most socialist of the 4 biggest parties, with Kadima and Israel Beitenu coming in between. Israel Beitenu is closer to Likud than Kadima.