So due to the incompetence and bloated egos of various politicians , Israelis will be going to the polling booths on March 17th, two years early than expected.

Assumedly, the peace process will take a back seat for the next four months. There again, Abbas and Obama are also not exactly full of new ideas. As for the economy, an interesting situation has arisen.

In the pessimists’ corner, many observers are full of gloom and doom. For example, one financial newspaper has dedicated three pages to all the reforms that have been put on hold and could even be abandoned:  the ports, the postal authority, import regulations, family law and much much more. In addition, the price of government bonds sunk yesterday due to the impending political uncertainty. And the fact is that to finance the elections, around 1.5 billion shekels (US$0.35 billion) of public money will be ‘invested’.

Worst of all, with the economic growth visibly slowing down, the budget for 2015 will not be debated. That cannot be good for the country.

There again, I find three significant monetary benefits to this four month process of political verbal garbage.

First, starting with the budget, because there has been no run-up period, as for example currently exists in Britain, there is no opportunity for the Prime Minister play ‘election economics’. This is where funds are found for seemingly important public projects in order to secure more votes. That game is off the agenda.

Now consider that postponed 2015 budget, which is unlikely to be enacted before June 2015. In its place will reside the 2014 budget, which will be divided up by 12, until replaced by fresh legislation. That means that here also there is no way to put through new expenditures. In fact, when initially introduced twelve months ago, it was considered fairly restrictive.

A third bonus in this bizarre scenario is the rate of exchange. For several years, the shekel has remained strong against major currencies such as the dollar and the euro. For an economy that imports much of its raw materials that has been beneficial to the domestic consumer. For exporters, the backbone of Israel’s economy, this has been a very difficult time.

However, the political uncertainty has created a further devaluation of the shekel – about 14% since August. Bottom line, almost overnight, Israeli goods and services have become more attractive in overseas markets. The prospect of higher profits should secure more jobs locally.

Do not misunderstand me. There are some very worrying immediate problems. For example, there is a general consensus that the Ministry of Defense is severely under budgeted. The question remains how to find the funds.

That said, the Israeli economy has repeatedly shown itself to be very resilient. The present election campaign must just ensure that zealous politicos do not wreck it.