Corruption again, and again not decisive

Corruption was prominent in the run-up to the 2009 election, but did not affect the outcome. Two candidates accused of corruption, Benyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, led their parties to greater success than in the election of 2006. The candidate claiming to be free of corruption, Tzipi Livni, led her party to the most seats in Knesset, but not enough to overcome Netanyahu's advantage of allies. Complicating the analysis of corruption and the election outcome is the fuzziness in the key concept. Corruption means different things to different communities and individuals. Israel is not free of corruption, but neither is it clearly more corrupt than other western democracies. Citizens may be inured to a chronic, but tolerable level of corruption, so that they do not consider it essential to guiding their votes.