ABSTRACT
The right to be elected is a basic democratic right and one of the most important safeguards of democracy. Limitations on this right infringe upon both formal democracy and substantive democracy, harming the restricted candidates as well as the voters who are denied the right to vote for them. In Israel, the political institution of the Knesset by nature reinforces the support for the procedural aspect of democracy among the politicians. The main factors identified by the theoretical and empirical literature as producing variation in the support for and implementation of democratic rights by elites are very relevant to the Israeli case. In the politics of imposing restrictions on the fundamental right to run for office, one can discern the dangers of the slippery slope about which many civil libertarians express alarm, and one can see the downside of arguments for restricting democratic freedoms in order to defend democracy.
