Freedom of expression during each prime minister's tenure

Every prime minister since 1991, ranked by how the freedom of expression changed from their first day in office. Politare shows what happened during a tenure; it does not claim the office-holder caused it.

#	Prime minister	In office	Total	Per year	Chart
1	Ariel Sharon	7 Mar 2001 – 4 Jan 2006	+0.7 points 2000 → 2005	+0.1 points/yr
2	Yitzhak Rabin	13 Jul 1992 – 4 Nov 1995	+0.5 points 1992 → 1995	+0.2 points/yr
3	Benjamin Netanyahu	18 Jun 1996 – 6 Jul 1999	0.0 points 1995 → 1999	0.0 points/yr
4	Ehud Olmert	4 Jan 2006 – 31 Mar 2009	−0.8 points 2005 → 2008	−0.3 points/yr
5	Benjamin Netanyahu	31 Mar 2009 – 13 Jun 2021	−1.1 points 2008 → 2020	−0.1 points/yr
6	Benjamin Netanyahu	29 Dec 2022 – now	−3.1 points 2022 → 2025	−1.0 points/yr

Sorted by total, highest first. Every row is indexed to the last count complete before the first day in office ("from" marks a start that had to move because that count had no data, or because the period cut it); Levels are per cent changes, rates are differences in points; "per year" compounds levels and divides rates. Tenures with under 12 months, or under three observations, are left out. points, 0 to 100, V-Dem's 0 to 1 index times 100 · V-Dem Institute, V-Dem dataset v16 (v2x_freexp_altinf): the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index, the press, academic and private speech and the media's independence, as V-Dem's country experts rate them, with V-Dem's confidence interval; the 0 to 1 index times 100 · Israel data · as of Sep 2026.