Israeli legislative election, 1969
Encyclopedia
Elections
for the seventh Knesset were held in Israel
on 28 October 1969. Voter turnout was 81.7%.
¹ Meir Avizohar defected from the National List to the Alignment
² Avner Shaki
left the National Religious Party and remained a single MK
³ Shalom Cohen
left HaOlam HaZeh - Koah Hadash, which was renamed Meri
.
It was also the last election with such a decisive majority for the left-wing in Israel, as the disastrous Yom Kippur War
shortly before the next elections
seriously damaged the Alignment's credibility, with their majority over Gahal reduced to just 12 seats.
of the Alignment formed the fifteenth government
, a national unity government
including Gahal, the National Religious Party, the Independent Liberals, Progress and Development and Cooperation and Brotherhood. There were 24 ministers.
Gahal resigned from the coalition on 6 August 1970 after the government had decided to adopt the Rogers Plan
.
The seventh Knesset was one of the most stable, with only one new party created (and that itself was virtually a rename of an existing party) and four MKs changing parties.
Elections in Israel
Elections in Israel are based on nationwide proportional representation. The electoral threshold is currently set at 2%, 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...
for the seventh Knesset were held in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
on 28 October 1969. Voter turnout was 81.7%.
Results
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alignment Alignment (political party) The Alignment was an alliance of the major left-wing parties in Israel between the 1960s and 1990s. It was established in 1965 as an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda but was dissolved three years later when the two parties and Rafi formally merged into the Israeli Labor Party... ¹ |
632,135 | 46.2 | 56 | |
| Gahal Gahal Gahal , lit. Herut-Liberals Bloc) was the major right-wing political faction in Israel led by Menachem Begin from its founding in 1965 until it merged into Likud in 1973.-Background:... |
296,294 | 21.7 | 26 | 0 |
| National Religious Party National Religious Party The National Religious Party ) was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement. Formed in 1956, at the time of its dissolution in 2008, it was the second oldest surviving party in the country after Agudat Yisrael, and was part of every government coalition until 1992... ² |
133,238 | 9.7 | 12 | |
| Agudat Yisrael | 44,002 | 3.2 | 4 | 0 |
| Independent Liberals Independent Liberals (Israel) The Independent Liberals were a political party in Israel between the 1960s and 1980s.-History:The Independent Liberals party was formed during the fifth Knesset in the aftermath of the merger of the Liberal Party and Herut. Seven of the 17 Liberal Party MKs led by former Minister of Justice,... |
43,933 | 3.2 | 4 | |
| National List National List The National List , sometimes translated as the State List, was a political party in Israel. Despite being founded by David Ben-Gurion, one of the fathers of the Israeli left, the party is an ancestor of the modern-day Likud, Israel's largest right-wing bloc.-Background:The National List had been... ¹ |
42,654 | 3.1 | 4 | New |
| Rakah | 38,827 | 2.8 | 3 | 0 |
| Progress and Development Progress and Development Progress and Development was a political party in Israel.-History:Progress and Development was an Israeli Arab organisation formed to fight the 1959 elections... |
28,046 | 2.1 | 2 | 0 |
| Poalei Agudat Yisrael | 24,968 | 1.9 | 2 | 0 |
| Cooperation and Brotherhood Cooperation and Brotherhood Cooperation and Brotherhood was a political party in Israel.-History:Cooperation and Brotherhood was an Israeli Arab organisation formed to participate in the 1959 elections... |
19.943 | 1.4 | 2 | 0 |
| HaOlam HaZeh – Koah Hadash Meri (political party) Meri , lit. Israeli Radical Camp) was a small radical left-wing political party in Israel. It was founded in the 1960s as HaOlam HaZeh – Koah Hadash by Uri Avnery, editor of HaOlam HaZeh.-History:... ³ |
16,853 | 1.2 | 2 | |
| Free Centre Free Centre The Free Centre was a political party in Israel, and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Likud.-Background:The party was created on 29 March 1967 during the sixth Knesset when Shmuel Tamir led a breakaway of three Herut members after a leadership dispute with Menachem Begin... |
16,393 | 1.2 | 2 | New |
| Maki Maki (historical political party) Maki was a communist political party in Israel. It is not the same party as the modern day Maki, which split from it during the 1960s and later assumed its name.-History:... |
15,712 | 1.1 | 1 | 0 |
| List for the Land of Israel Movement for Greater Israel The Movement for Greater Israel was a political organisation in Israel during the 1960s and 1970s which subscribed to an ideology of Greater Israel.... |
7,591 | 0.6 | 0 | New |
| Peace List Gadi Yatziv Professor Gadi Yatziv was an Israeli academic and politician who briefly served as a member of the Knesset for Mapam in 1988.-Biography:Born in kibbutz Na'an during the Mandate era, Yatziv was educated at the Hebrew University Secondary School and was a member of the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed youth... |
5,138 | 0.4 | 0 | 0 |
| Young Israel | 2,116 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 |
| Invalid/blank votes | 60,238 | |||
| Total | 1,427,981 | 100 | 120 | 0 |
| Source: Nohlen et al | ||||
¹ Meir Avizohar defected from the National List to the Alignment
² Avner Shaki
Avner Shaki
Avner-Hai Shaki was an Israeli politician who served as a government minister in the late 1980s and early 1990s.-Biography:Born in Safed during the Mandate era, Shaki studied law, gaining a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...
left the National Religious Party and remained a single MK
³ Shalom Cohen
Shalom Cohen (politician)
Shalom Cohen was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1969 and 1974.-Biography:Born in Baghdad in Iraq, Cohen's family moved to Egypt when he was six years old. He attended an English college in Alexandria, where he was one of the founders of the local Hashomer...
left HaOlam HaZeh - Koah Hadash, which was renamed Meri
The election
The 1969 election is notable for the fact that the Alignment coalition was returned to power with the largest number of seats ever won in an Israeli election (57 of the 120). This can be attributed to the government's popularity following the country's victory in the Six Day War, and that the Alignment had been formed by an alliance of the four most popular left-wing parties who between them had taken 51.2% of the vote in the previous electionIsraeli legislative election, 1965
Elections for the sixth Knesset were held in Israel on 1 November 1965. Voter turnout was 85.9%.-Background:Prior to the elections, two major alliances were formed; Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda united to form the Alignment, whilst Herut and the Liberal Party had formed the Gahal alliance towards the end...
.
It was also the last election with such a decisive majority for the left-wing in Israel, as the disastrous Yom Kippur War
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
shortly before the next elections
Israeli legislative election, 1973
The Elections for the eighth Knesset were held on 31 December 1973. Voter turnout was 78.6%.-Results:1 Aryeh Eliav left the Alignment and merged with Ratz to form Ya'ad - Civil Rights Movement...
seriously damaged the Alignment's credibility, with their majority over Gahal reduced to just 12 seats.
The Seventh Knesset
Golda MeirGolda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
of the Alignment formed the fifteenth government
Fifteenth government of Israel
The fifteenth government of Israel was formed by Golda Meir on 15 December 1969 following the October elections. The government was a continuation of the national unity government formed during the previous Knesset, and consisted of the Alignment, Gahal, the National Religious Party, the...
, a national unity government
National unity government
A national unity government, government of national unity, or national union government is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties in the legislature, usually formed during a time of war or other national emergency.- Canada :During World War I the Conservative government of Sir...
including Gahal, the National Religious Party, the Independent Liberals, Progress and Development and Cooperation and Brotherhood. There were 24 ministers.
Gahal resigned from the coalition on 6 August 1970 after the government had decided to adopt the Rogers Plan
Rogers plan
The Rogers Plan was a framework proposed by United States Secretary of State William P. Rogers to achieve an end to belligerence in the Arab-Israeli conflict following the Six-Day War and the continuing War of Attrition. The plan was publicly proposed in a December 9, 1969 speech at an Adult...
.
The seventh Knesset was one of the most stable, with only one new party created (and that itself was virtually a rename of an existing party) and four MKs changing parties.