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| Turnout | 70.10% | ||||||||||||||||||
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The 1992 Israeli Labor Party leadership election was held on 20 February 1992 [1] to elect the leader of the Israeli Labor Party. The winner was Yitzhak Rabin, who defeated incumbent Shimon Peres, as well as Yisrael Kessar and Ora Namir. The leadership election was the first in Israeli history to be open to a party's entire membership.
The election was the first time that the Israeli Labor Party had elected its leader by a vote open to its entire party membership. [2] It was the first party leadership vote of its kind in Israeli history. [3]
Shimon Peres had served as the party's leader since 1977. [2] During his leadership, the party had failed to emerge victorious in four consecutive Knesset elections. [4] Rabin had preceded Peres in the role of the party's leader, before resigning in 1977. [5] This was the fourth (and final) leadership election in which Peresa and Rabin faced each other (following the 1974 and February 1977, and 1980 leadership elections). [5]
In 1990, following the backfiring of "the dirty trick" on Peres and the Labor Party, and once it became evident that Yitzhak Shamir would likely succeed in forming a new government coalition without the Israeli Labor Party, Rabin unsuccessfully sought to convince the party to schedule a leadership election in 1990. [6] [7] A prospective leadership race in 1990 had looked promising to Rabin. Peres was weakened from the backfiring of "the dirty trick", and polling showed Rabin to be the nation's most popular politician. Additionally, many of Peres' longtime backers in the party had begun shifting their support to Rabin. [7] In July 1990, the Labor Party's 120 member Leadership Bureau voted to recommend that the party hold an immediate leadership election. [7] However, one week later, on 22 July 1990, the 1,400 member Labor Party Central Committee voted 54 to 46% against holding an immediate leadership contest. [6] [7] This set the part up to not hold a leadership election until at least the following year, unless the next Knesset election were to have been scheduled earlier than the anticipated 1992. [6] The committee's vote to reject Rabin's push for a 1990 leadership contest was regarded as an upset result. [6]
At the same time that the party's Central Committee decided against holding a leadership election in the year 1990, it became evident that the next leadership election might feature additional (younger) contenders, and not just Peres and Rabin, with both Ora Namir and Moshe Shahal declaring that they intended to run for Labor Party leader. [7] Ultimately, Shahal abandoned his plans. [8]
The race was widely a horserace between Rabin and Peres. [2]
Ahead of the leadership election, polling for the upcoming 1992 Israeli legislative election indicated that the party would fare better in the legislative election under the leadership of Rabin than it would under Peres. [9] Israeli political commentators also widely believed that the party would have a stronger odds of electoral success under Rabin than under Peres. [2] While polling, before the leadership election, had a Likud-led coalition as the likely outcome of the legislative election, polling and the opinions of commentators indicated that, if were Rabin were to become the Labour leader, there would be a strong increase in the chances of Labour taking lead in the legislative election. [2]
Polls showed the leadership election to be very close, with no clear front-runner between Rabin and Peres. [2]
108,347 party members participated in the vote, equal to 70.10% of the party's roughly 150,000 members. [3] [5]
If no candidate had received at least 40% of the vote, a runoff election would have been held. [1] Rabin placed first, and managed to narrowly surpass the 40% threshold, thereby winning the leadership election outright in the initial round. [3]
The polling location in Kiryat Shmona (the polling location for 500 party members) was not opened for the vote due to conflict arising in the area at the time of the vote. Polling stations in all other areas of the country, however, were opened as planned. [10]
Yisrael Kessar's performance was regarded as surprisingly strong. [10] [11]
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yizhak Rabin | 40.6 | ||
| Shimon Peres (incumbent) | 34.5 | ||
| Yisrael Kessar | 19.0 | ||
| Ora Namir | 5.5 | ||
| Total votes | 108,347 | 100 | |
| Voter turnout | 70.10% | ||
The prime minister of Israel is the head of government and chief executive of the State of Israel.
Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995.
Shimon Peres was an Israeli politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. He was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and except for a three-month-long interregnum in early 2006, served as a member of the Knesset continuously until he was elected president in 2007. Serving in the Knesset for 48 years, Peres is the longest serving member in the Knesset's history. At the time of his retirement from politics in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation.
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Elections for the 13th Knesset were held in Israel on 23 June 1992. The election resulted in the formation of a Labor government, led by Yitzhak Rabin, helped by the failure of several small right wing parties to pass the electoral threshold. Voter turnout was 77.4%.
General elections were held in Israel on 29 May 1996. For the first time, the prime minister was elected on a separate ballot from the remaining members of the Knesset.
Yisrael Kessar was an Israeli politician who served as a Knesset member for the Alignment and Labor Party between 1984 and 1996.
Ora Namir was an Israeli politician and diplomat who served as a member of the Knesset from 1974 until 1996, as well as holding the posts of Minister of the Environment and Minister of Labour and Social Welfare during the 1990s. She later became the country's ambassador to China and Mongolia.
The twenty-fourth government of Israel was formed by Yitzhak Shamir of Likud on 11 June 1990. This followed the failure of Alignment leader Shimon Peres to form a government, after the Alignment had pulled out of the previous national unity coalition, in an incident which became known as the dirty trick.
The twenty-sixth government of Israel was formed by Shimon Peres of the Labor Party on 22 November 1995, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on 4 November. Peres kept the same coalition as previously, namely the Labor Party, Meretz and Yiud, which together held only 58 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. However, the government was also supported, but not joined, by Hadash and the Arab Democratic Party, which held an additional five seats between them.
The Israeli Labor Party, commonly known as HaAvoda, is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The party was established in 1968 by a merger of Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda, and Rafi. Until 1977, all Israeli Prime Ministers were affiliated with the Labor movement. The current party leader is Merav Michaeli, who was elected in January 2021.
The 1974 Israeli Labor Party leadership election was held on 23 April 1974. It saw the election of Yitzhak Rabin to succeed Golda Meir as the party's leader. Rabin defeated Shimon Peres. It was the first of four leadership contests in which Rabin and Peres challenged each other.
The February 1977 Israeli Labor Party leadership election was held on 23 February 1977. It saw Yitzhak Rabin re-elected as the party's leader. Rabin defeated Shimon Peres. It was the second of four leadership contests in which Rabin and Peres faced each other.
The 1980 Israeli Labor Party leadership election was held on 18 December 1980. It saw Shimon Peres reelected as the party's leader. Peres defeated Yitzhak Rabin.
The 1992 Likud leadership election was held on 20 February 1992 to elect the leader of the Likud party. It saw the reelection of Yitzhak Shamir, who defeated challenges from David Levy and Ariel Sharon
The 1993 Likud leadership election was held on March 24, 1993 to elect the leader of the Likud party. Benjamin Netanyahu defeated three other candidates in the race to succeed outgoing party leader Yitzhak Shamir. This was the first time in the history of the Likud party that a party leadership election was open to the party's general membership. Since Netanyahu received more than the 40% threshold required to win in the first round of voting, no runoff election was held.
