"A government with 61 members is good. A government with more than 61 members is even better," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over and over. Most commentators, both right- and left-wing, share the view that a 61-member government can never be stable and will not last. The prime minister can hardly be blamed for making that statement, since it tells his partners clearly that he has options for changing the coalition's makeup -- which could spur them to a reasonable level of cooperation. Still, it bears mentioning that neither empirical comparative research nor Israeli history prove that narrow-majority governments are short-lived. Five days after the election, I sent the following message to a friend who was involved in the coalition talks: "Lawrence David [a well-known American scientist] proved in the 1970s that the smaller the coalition, the longer its lifespan tends to be. It's a counter-intuitive idea, but it's well supported. I tell you this as a prelude to the extortion by factions that have six seats." To put it another way: Not even Avigdor Lieberman's decision to stay out of the government was completely unexpected. The conclusion, then, is that a narrow government is not necessarily a bad thing. Narrow governments with a tiny parliamentary majority tend to last for three reasons. First, the ideological distances among the partners in such governments are usually not very big. Contrary to conventional views of the elected officials as politicians who lack all restraint and are committed to nothing but their own personal gain, the officials usually stick quite loyally to their positions on various political matters. The reasons for crises actually decrease in a coalition where the ideological differences among the partners are small. Second, in a coalition that will lose its parliamentary majority if even its lowest-ranking member quits, the partners can be compared to people carrying guns, each with a single bullet. The guns are aimed at the partners' temples. Under such circumstances, those who bring down the government by quitting are committing political suicide. Third, the partners in a small government enjoy greater rewards. The coalition that was just formed is not only one with a razor-thin majority, but also one in which the ideological distances between its partners are small compared with other coalition options. While there are quite a few subjects of controversy, the coalition partners have at least a slim chance of getting all their desires fulfilled. In the other coalition options, they would have no chance at all. The absence of Yisrael Beytenu from the coalition seems to stem from the belief that alternative coalitions, in which Lieberman would receive greater compensation, could be formed, even if down the road. Still, it is obvious that the reasons for his party's absence were personal considerations and baggage, even though Yisrael Beytenu was offered exorbitant rewards for its participation in a 67-seat government. Contrary to the accepted view, the elections weakened the Right a little. The right-wing parties -- Likud, Habayit Hayehudi and Yisrael Beytenu -- and the ultra-Orthodox parties won a total of 57 seats. If we remember that the right-wing camp controlled 61 seats in the previous election, we see clearly that its power was slightly reduced. The early elections in Likud and Netanyahu's personal placements on the Knesset list resulted in the ideological profile of Likud's candidates being much less right-wing, in many ways, than in the past. For example, Moshe Feiglin, the candidate who was considered the farthest to the right, was removed. This is why the Likud should be seen as more centrist than it has been in the past. Also, the strength of all the other parties waned as Likud grew stronger. Eli Yishai's Yahad, which contained the most extreme right-wing elements, did not pass the electoral threshold. The waste of votes was much greater on the Right than on the Left, as has happened in the past. Yahad's failure somewhat reduced Netanyahu's bargaining power when the time came to form the government. Complicated, but not impossible Still, Likud's situation has improved in two ways. First, it won 30 seats, compared with the 18 it had at the end of the outgoing government's term and the 20 seats it shared with Yisrael Beytenu after the 2009 elections. In this context, we should note that the last-minute move by voters of other right-wing parties, Habayit Hayehudi first among them, to Likud was foreseen. The Likud's "gevald" campaign is based on a well-known and universal phenomenon in which supporters of weak candidates transfer their support to strong ones when there is a feeling that the elections are close. It is also well known that voter turnout increases in such an atmosphere. An analysis of the change in the voter turnout rate proves that the ones who benefited the most from the 4.5 percent increase in voter turnout were Likud and the Joint Arab List. Second, Moshe Kahlon's maneuvering room is fairly limited. The forming of a coalition led by Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog and Kahlon was a hard thing to imagine. Such a coalition would have required a compromise between parties that hold diametrically opposed views on critical issues, such as Yisrael Beytenu and Meretz or Yesh Atid and the ultra-Orthodox parties. Therefore Kahlon ended up holding the key position at the center of the political map, while still having to cooperate with the incumbent prime minister. This gave Netanyahu more maneuvering room compared to the state of affairs after the elections for the 19th Knesset, in which he was compelled to accept the "brothers' pact" of Lapid and Bennett, who kept the ultra-Orthodox parties out of the coalition. In the end, Likud translated its electoral success into hard coin. It has a clear majority in the government itself, even though it is a minority from a parliamentary perspective. The Likud has kept control over three of the most important ministries and over the security cabinet. Instability could come not necessarily from the coalition partners, but from the prime minister's own attempts to improve the coalition's makeup. This tendency is an understandable one, since it will not be easy to win all the parliamentary battles that are in store against a 59-member opposition in the Knesset. That is what happens when one is constantly dependent on cooperation form each and every Knesset member in the coalition. Threats in the style of "Let me die with the Philistines" have already been heard from members of Likud itself, even before the government is sworn in.
