The Israeli elections are over, but we still don't have a new government. The less-than-ringing endorsement of
Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party (29 seats out of 120 in the Knesset) means that Olmert must cobble together a ruling coalition.
How did the Israeli media fare? First, pre-election polls were way off. One showed Kadima with 36 seats -- off by about 25 percent. None of the polls came close to predicting the surprising results for the new "Pensioners" Party, which won seven seats (several polls showed the party winning two seats; others had them with none). The apparent last-minute surge was missed by polls that stopped 24-48 hours before the vote.
The media reported these polls credulously, to their regret. Will they learn from this debacle? Probably not.
Also, with coalition talks now under way, Olmert is trying to assemble the pieces of his political jigsaw puzzle. Ynet is helping with a cute interactive graphic showing the size of the differing parties in bar graphs, and doing the math for users. Just click and drag the different parties' bar graphs onto a chart. A built-in calculator will tell you when you've reached the necessary number.
I'm told that even Olmert is using this feature.
(Disclosure: I was once employed by Ynet and still write a column for their English site, Ynetnews.com, which I founded.)
