Less than a decade ago, Israel became the world's first parliamentary democracy to adopt direct popular election as the method of choosing its prime minister. The passage of this controversial reform was spurred by a three-month-long government crisis in the spring of 1990, during which Israelis looked on in shock and dismay as members of their parliament (the 120-seat Knesset) indulged in an unprecedented public orgy of floor-crossing and unseemly bargaining, with parties and individual legislators scrambling for place, preferment, and political advantage. This episode--known ever after as "the stinking maneuver"--led Israelis to change their Basic Law in 1992 to require that a separate popular election of the prime minister (PM) be held concurrently with balloting for the Knesset, although the PM's mandate would continue to depend upon a parliamentary vote of confidence.