Israeli legislative election, 1973

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Elections for the 8th Knesset
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  1969 31 December 1973 1977  

Party Leader% Seats±
Alignment Golda Meir 39.6% 51 -5
Likud Menachem Begin 30.2% 39 +7
Mafdal Yosef Burg 8.3% 10 -2
Religious Torah Front Shlomo Lorincz 3.8% 5 -1
Independent Liberals Moshe Kol 3.6% 4 0
Maki Meir Vilner 3.4% 4 +1
Ratz Shulamit Aloni 2.2% 3 New
Progress and Development Seif el-Din el-Zoubi 1.4% 2 0
Moked Meir Pa'il 1.4% 1 New
Arab List for Bedouin and Villagers Hamad Abu Rabia 1.0% 1 New
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Prime Minister beforePrime Minister after
Golda Meir
Alignment
Golda Meir
Alignment

The Elections for the eighth Knesset were held on 31 December 1973. Voter turnout was 78.6%. [1] The election was postponed for two months because of the Yom Kippur War.

Elections in Israel

Elections in Israel are based on nationwide proportional representation. The electoral threshold is currently set at 3.25%, with the number of seats a party receives in the Knesset being proportional to the number of votes it receives. The Knesset is elected for a four-year term, although most governments have not served a full term and early elections are a frequent occurrence. Israel has a multi-party system based on coalition governments as no party has ever won a majority of seats in a national election, although the Alignment briefly held a majority following its formation by an alliance of several different parties prior to the 1969 elections. The legal voting age for Israeli citizens is 18. Elections are overseen by the Central Elections Committee and are held according to the Knesset Elections Law.

Yom Kippur War October 1973 war between Israel and the Arab states Egypt and Syria

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War, or October War, also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, was a war fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel. The war took place mostly in Sinai and the Golan—occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War—with some fighting in African Egypt and northern Israel. Egypt's initial war objective was to use its military to seize a foothold on the east bank of the Suez Canal and use this to negotiate the return of the rest of Sinai.

Contents

Results

PartyVotes%Seats+/−
Alignment 1 4 5 6621,18339.651−5
Likud 2473,30930.239+7
National Religious Party 130,3498.310−2
Religious Torah Front 360,0123.85−1
Independent Liberals 256,5603.640
Rakah 53,3533.44+1
Ratz 135,0232.23New
Progress and Development 422,6041.420
Moked 22,1471.41New
Arab List for Bedouin and Villagers 416,4081.01New
Black Panthers 13,3320.90New
Kach 12,8110.80New
Meri 10,4690.70−1
Movement for Social Equality10,2020.70New
Cooperation and Brotherhood 9,9490.60−2
Blue White Panthers5,9450.40New
Brotherhood Movement4,4330.30New
Israeli Arab List3,2690.20New
Yemenite List 3,1950.20New
Socialist Revolution List1,2010.10New
Popular Movement1,1010.10New
Invalid/blank votes34,243
Total1,601,0981001200
Source: Nohlen et al.

1 Aryeh Eliav left the Alignment and merged with Ratz to form Ya'ad - Civil Rights Movement. The new party later broke up when Eliav and Marcia Freedman left to set up the Independent Socialist Faction, whilst Shulamit Aloni and Boaz Moav returned to Ratz.

Aryeh Eliav Israeli politician

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The Independent Socialist Faction was a political party in Israel in the 1970s.

2 Hillel Seidel defected from the Independent Liberals to Likud.

Hillel Seidel was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Independent Liberals and Likud between 1974 and 1981.

3 The Religious Torah Front broke up into Agudat Yisrael (three seats) and Poalei Agudat Yisrael (two seats).

4 Progress and Development and the Arab List for Bedouins and Villagers merged into the Alignment (with which they were already associated) before breaking away to form the United Arab List).

The United Arab List was an Arab satellite list in Israel during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is not connected to the modern day United Arab List.

5 Mordechai Ben-Porat broke away from the Alignment and remained a single MK.

6 Mapam broke away from the Alignment but rejoined it soon after.

The Eighth Knesset

Golda Meir of the Alignment formed the sixteenth government on 10 March 1974, including the National Religious Party and the Independent Liberals in her coalition, with 22 ministers. Meir resigned on 11 April 1974 after the Agranat Commission had published its interim report on the Yom Kippur War.

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Golda Meir was an Israeli teacher, kibbutznik, stateswoman, politician and the fourth prime minister of Israel.

Sixteenth government of Israel

The sixteenth government of Israel was formed by Golda Meir on 10 March 1974, following the December 1973 elections. However, following Meir's resignation as Prime Minister on 11 April, it only remained in office until 3 June, and at just 85 days, was the shortest-lived government in Israeli political history.

The Agranat Commission was a National Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate failings in the Israel Defense Forces in the prelude to the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was found unprepared for the Egyptian attack against the Bar Lev Line and a simultaneous attack by Syria in the Golan—the first phase in a war in which 2,812 Israeli soldiers were killed.

The Alignment's Yitzhak Rabin formed the seventeenth government on 3 June 1974, including Ratz, the Independent Liberals, Progress and Development and the Arab List for Bedouins and Villagers. The new government had 19 ministers. The National Religious Party joined the coalition on 30 October and Ratz left on the 6 November, by which time there were 21 ministers.

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Seventeenth government of Israel

The seventeenth government of Israel was formed by Yitzhak Rabin on 3 June 1974, following the resignation of Prime Minister Golda Meir on 11 April and Rabin's election as Labor Party leader on 26 April. It was the first time an Israeli government had been led by a native-born Israeli.

The government resigned on 22 December 1976, after ministers of the National Religious Party were sacked because the party had abstained from voting on a motion of no confidence, which had been brought by Agudat Yisrael over a breach of the Sabbath on an Israeli Air Force base.

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References

  1. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p125 ISBN   0-19-924958-X