The Knesset should choose the president

Recently, when the issue of electing a new president was put on the agenda, the idea of transferring the vote to a national referendum came up again. Inherent in this proposal, however, is a mix that includes both a lack of understanding about the Knesset's function and authority, and cheap populism meant as defamation and an attack on politicians.

The Knesset, which comprises 120 lawmakers, is elected by the people. Just a year ago, 3.8 million Israelis (67.7 percent of eligible voters) headed to the polls to vote democratically for the Knesset, which formed the government and has responsibility for all state matters, including choosing the president.

Writing in Israel Hayom on Jan. 19, my friend, journalist Ya'akov Ahimeir, wrote, "The secret vote to elect a state president has been revoked from us, the citizens. We can take part in deciding the ruling party or which leader will be the next prime minister, but we, the citizens, have not even an iota of influence, however minimal, over the next president."

I can think of a thousand other examples of important issues on the agenda which are determined by the Knesset, starting with raising taxes, changing the system of governance in Israel, determining maternity leave and setting child stipends and retirement benefits, just to name a few. The Knesset is first and foremost a legislative authority, but it also has several other responsibilities beyond making laws. Choosing the president, the state comptroller, picking representatives for the judicial selection committee and designating rabbinical judges represent just a fraction of these responsibilities.

There's something vexing and unfair about the tendency to view politicians as unattractive, or creating the impression that our ministers and MKs are essentially cheats and crooks, whose life mission it is to dupe the public. Such claims are baseless. As a Knesset reporter spending dozens of hours every week in the Knesset compound, speaking with various ministers and MKs, I can testify to the fact that most of these individuals are decent people, albeit some more talented than others and some more industrious than others, ande there's no need to vilify or question the integrity of most of them. They are the mirror to our society, for better or worse.

There is no good reason to strip the Knesset of the authority to elect the president and offer that responsibility instead to the nation for referendum. Even if the decision-making was handed over to the people, there would be no guarantees that the nation could pick a better candidate than the Knesset. True, we can't play dumb. All of us know that a secret presidential election can lead to under-the-table wheeling and dealing, but are Knesset elections free from "vote contractors" or external forces influencing certain "clans" how to vote? Who is promising us that there would not be voter fraud, like we saw in the Beit Shemesh election?

Furthermore, history has proved that when the Knesset elected scientists to be presidents (Professors Haim Weizmann and Efraim Katzir), these individuals were unsuccessful, to put it mildly. They were hardly adored by the public. Katzir is even remembered as the man who laid the blame on us all (saying, "We are all guilty") for the humiliating failure of our defenses at the start of the Yom Kippur War. Let's not forget that it was the Knesset, and no other authority, that chose the most warmly received presidents (some of them were even loved), including Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak Navon, Chaim Herzog and Shimon Peres.

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