Good evening, members of the committee.
I dare hope that, at the conclusion of these proceedings, two possibilities will be clearly ruled out: the present system and the fully proportional system.
As you may guess from my name, I am of Italian extraction. If you follow Italian politics, you may know that, as a result of that system, there have been more governments than years since the second world war. The situation in Israel is very interesting too.
The mixed system is very interesting. The perfect system does exist, but it dates back a long time, to Greece, Athens and the agora. Everyone assembled and made decisions together. Given the current population, however, it would unfortunately be impossible to apply it.
However, I expect your committee will submit simulations to us to illustrate the various ways of operating the proportional system. We must absolutely be able to see what it looks like.
I have heard people speak out against the idea of a coalition. However, a coalition that represents 60% or 70% of the population is nevertheless preferable to a single party that manages to impose its views even though it represents only 30% of the people. It also prevents excesses. I believe we have managed to avoid them every time we have had coalition governments. The problem is that they do not last long in our present system.
I especially expect that your committee will recommend an obligation of result, not to your parties, but to the population. It is the population that elects you. You therefore have an obligation to establish and present to us a system that will represent the population as a whole, not your parties. This is one opportunity, but there will not be 10 of them. I expect everyone to work together to come up with that result. If we fail in our attempt, this kind of opportunity will probably not arise again for a very long time. There has to be an open discussion. Show us simulations that demonstrate what the various systems can do.
There are a host of ways to do things. There could even be a two-round election for the section in each of the districts, and a proportional election at the regional level. We have to ensure that things work well and basically that people can take part in electoral life.