Israeli legislative election, 1969

Israeli legislative election, 1969

1965 ←
28 October 1969
→ 1973

All 120 seats to the Knesset
61 seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Golda Meir Menachem Begin Haim-Moshe Shapira
Party Alignment Gahal National Religious Party
Leader since 1969 1948 1955
Last election 63 seats, 51.2% 26 seats, 21.3% 11 seats, 8.9%
Seats won 56 26 12
Seat change 7 0 1
Popular vote 632,135 296,294 133,238
Percentage 46.2% 21.7% 9.7%

  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader n/a Moshe Kol David Ben-Gurion
Party Agudat Yisrael Independent Liberals National List
Last election 4 seats, 3.3% 5 seats, 3.8% 9 seats, 7.5%
Seats won 4 4 8
Seat change 0 1 1
Popular vote 44,002 43,933 79,985
Percentage 3.2% 3.2% 6.6%

Prime Minister before election

Golda Meir
Alignment

Prime Minister

Golda Meir
Alignment

Israel

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Elections for the seventh Knesset were held in Israel on 28 October 1969. Voter turnout was 81.7%.[1]

Contents

Results

Party Votes % Seats +/-
Alignment ¹ 632,135 46.2 56 -7
Gahal 296,294 21.7 26 0
National Religious Party ² 133,238 9.7 12 +1
Agudat Yisrael 44,002 3.2 4 0
Independent Liberals 43,933 3.2 4 -1
National List ¹ 42,654 3.1 4 New
Rakah 38,827 2.8 3 0
Progress and Development 28,046 2.1 2 0
Poalei Agudat Yisrael 24,968 1.9 2 0
Cooperation and Brotherhood 19.943 1.4 2 0
HaOlam HaZeh – Koah Hadash ³ 16,853 1.2 2 +1
Free Centre 16,393 1.2 2 New
Maki 15,712 1.1 1 0
List for the Land of Israel 7,591 0.6 0 New
Peace List 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 left the National Religious Party and remained a single MK

³ Shalom Cohen 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 election.

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.

The Seventh Knesset

Golda Meir 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.

References

  1. ^ Nohlen, D, Grotz, F & Hartmann, C (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p125 ISBN 019924958

External links