Next Israeli legislative election

National elections for the Knesset are held once every four years, though early elections are common. The next scheduled election is sometime for October 22, 2013.

Early elections can be called by a vote of the majority of Knesset members, or by an edict of the President, and normally occur on occasions of political stalemate and inability of the government to get the parliament's support for its policy. Failure to get the annual budget bill approved by the Knesset by March 31 (3 months after the start of the fiscal year) also leads automatically to early elections.
Parties and leaders
Kadima
Tzipi Livni, who has been leader of the Kadima party since 2008, is trying for a chance to be Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir.
Likud
The leader of Likud is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led the party since the split with Kadima.
Labor
On 17 January 2011, disillusionment with party leader Ehud Barak, over his support for coalition policies, especially regarding the peace-process, led to Barak's resignation from the Labor Party with four other Knesset members to establish a new "centrist, Zionist and democratic" party, Independence. Following this move, all Labor Party government ministers resigned.
Labor Party primaries of 2011
The "primary" election was held in September of that year. Former journalist Shelly Yachimovich and Amir Peretz, who served a short stint as defense minister, led with a little over 30 percent of the votes each. Isaac Herzog, a former Cabinet minister, came in a close third, and as a candidate needed 40 percent to win, Yachimovich and Peretz competed in a Sept. 21 runoff.
Yisrael Beitenu
Yisrael Beiteinu is a right-wing party established in 1999 by Avigdor Lieberman, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union and at one time the director of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. He has been Foreign Minster since the elections of 2009.

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