Can Netanyahu ‘s COVID vaccine be vaccinated against electoral loss?

The debate among experts focuses on how this will have a major impact on the process and the end results.

The coronavirus pandemic falls into two main categories of choice: technical and political.

On a technical level, the Israeli Central Electoral Committee is currently drawing up plans to add around 3,000 new polling stations to its existing network of 11,000 stations.

Approximately 350 of the new stations will be housed in nursing homes and other facilities catering for the elderly, with the remainder distributed through conventional stations to reduce population.

This not only means adding staff but also strengthening protective measures such as hand-washing machine bottles, alcohol cans, and parties to employees and workers. to protect voting.

Another aspect of the plan is to vote to drive in and create special quarantine votes, including extra plastic cover, for voters who are infected with the virus.

Unlike the US, Israel has no arrangements for email ballots, early voting, or a digital voting booth. Similarly, with very few exceptions such as Foreign Ministry staff and members of the military, Israelis abroad on Election Day cannot vote.

“About a quarter of all Israelis will not vote and it is even more complicated this year. [due to the pandemic and uncertainty regarding flights to Israel and quarantine for travelers], for Israelis abroad to return to Israel to vote, ”said Camil Fuchs, professor emeritus of statistics at Tel Aviv University.

In the recent elections, airlines were filled with outgoing Israelis arriving just to vote and leaving immediately afterwards.

“This year, as a result of the pandemic,” Fuchs said, “Israelis will be wary of voting if they believe it could make them sick.” The Central Elections Committee should add hours. Instead of finishing at 10pm, they should add a few hours to make people feel safer. “

The committee should also consider opening polling stations for more than one day, although this will be the case, as at present, Election Day is a day off for staff and the economy.

“The country should roll out the vote for more than one day to reduce the pressure on voters who do not want to expose themselves to the virus,” said Dr. Dani Filc of the Department. Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev in Be’er Sheva.

Filc, a pediatrician whose research focuses on health policy, is optimistic about the effectiveness of the distribution of vaccines that will reach most Israelis before Election Day, March 23rd.

“We have about 80 days left and if we bring in 100,000 a day, we can reach 90% of the population. I think this is overly optimistic but we were able to reach ‘herd protection’ levels [between 60 and 70% of the population] before the elections. We have the technical capabilities to do this, ”he says.

Filc is modeling optimism, arguing that government policy depends on when the country receives more vaccines from the producers and the extent to which some groups, such as the Arab Jewish communities and ultra-rectangular, vaccine compliant.

“We don’t have compliance issues like the U.S. is doing with the anti-vaxxer voice move, but more work needs to be done to get those numbers vaccinated,” he says.

On the political side, how the virus and the inclusion effort will be in an important framework.

“The control of the coronavirus pandemic and the activity of the vaccine can be designed either as a success if you are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or a supporter, or as a failure if you choose against Netanyahu,” he said. Dr. Assaf Shapira, head of the Political Reform Program at the Israeli Institute for Democracy.

Some political parties, such as right-wing Yamina Naftali Bennett, he says, are running on a platform that says the Prime Minister has failed to rule the country at the time of the outbreak. panoramic.

“Bennett is heavily using the economy and the hardships that people face with their livelihoods – especially during the national locks – to attack Netanyahu,” Shapira says.

“This could jeopardize his campaign if inoculating the working population and opening up the economy before the elections,” he says, especially since many of Likud’s supporters are an independent business that suffers greatly at the time of lockout.

Other right-wing parties, such as New Hope Gideon Sa’ar and Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Liberman, are not talking about pandemics or vaccines, but rather aiming to present themselves as alternatives instead. the current prime minister, according to Shapira.

However, this could change, says Shapira, as former full-back Likud Dr. Yifat Shasha-Biton is # 2 on the New Hope list. As Likud MK and chair of the Knesset coronavirus committee, she was concerned about the government’s abuse of the pandemic.

But if Netanyahu stays out front and speaks out about the inoculations, he will have success, says Dr. Jonathan Rynhold from the Department of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University.

“He can take credit and show that he took those lies quickly and effectively. This is a direct matter of his personal interests and those of the public as well, ”said Rynhold.

“But of course, if not everyone gets the vaccine, then someone else has to take the blame,” he says.

So Netanyahu is visible to the vaccine providers and to the number of doses Israel will receive before the election.

As the political movement continues, what will the voters like? To the experts, it is not clear.

“The short answer,” says Fuchs, “is that we don’t know what effect the coronavirus will have on the vote; we just know it will.”