Knesset elections were held in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
on 30 June 1981. The ruling
Likud
Likud ( he, הַלִּיכּוּד, HaLikud, The Consolidation), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement, is a major centre-right to right-wing political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel S ...
won one more seat than the opposition
Alignment
Alignment may refer to:
Archaeology
* Alignment (archaeology), a co-linear arrangement of features or structures with external landmarks
* Stone alignment, a linear arrangement of upright, parallel megalithic standing stones
Biology
* Struc ...
, in line with many polls which had predicted a tight race. Voter turnout was 78.5%,
with Likud receiving around ten thousand more than the Alignment.
This elections highlighted the polarization in the country.
Background
Prior to the elections,
Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. ...
's government faced instability due to internal conflict amongst coalition partners and international pressures, as well as issues with corruption, and failure to pass legislation.
Discontent with the government was growing, and 40% of people agreed that "the major problems facing the state and the entire political system must be changed and a strong government of leaders and independent of parties should take control".
Parliament factions
The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the
9th Knesset
Legislative elections were held in Israel on 17 May 1977 to elect the ninth Knesset. For the first time in Israeli political history, the right wing, led by Likud, won a plurality of seats, ending almost 30 years of rule by the left-wing Alignme ...
.
Electoral system
The 120 seats in the Knesset were elected by
closed list
Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
, with seats allocated using the
D'Hondt method
The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highes ...
. This led to numerous parties winning seats and multi-party government coalitions.
Campaign
Since 1965 parties had begun abandoning attempts to
frame moral issues in favor of spreading wider nets to catch a bigger range of voters. Rather than focusing on controversial issues that divided them, parties took to forming clusters that resorted to "emotive catchwords" and the lowest common denominator.
The party clusters had set aside fundamental ideals in order to work together, which meant that infighting amongst the coalitions was inevitable.
Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. ...
, Likud's most popular candidate, served as a strong factor for the party's resurgence. 41% of the adult Jews responded in favor of seeing Begin as prime minister, with 49% saying Begin would better be able to deal with the country’s problems.
[Survey by Dahaf Research Institute, June 1981, N=1237] The Alignment, whose announcement of potential major ministerial appointments failed to include
Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) 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 h ...
, left the impression of a power-hungry group of politicians, with animosity between party leaders
Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres (; he, שמעון פרס ; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) 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 ...
and Rabin.
Public perception of the parties became instrumental in the elections; throughout the campaign the Alignment was seen and painted as the establishment party, considered by 48% of Israeli citizens surveyed to be more old-fashioned, despite its opposition to the government for the four years prior. The Alignment was also seen as self-interested by rather than interested in the good of the people, as well as corrupt. Likud, meanwhile, was seen as slightly stronger (50% as compared with the Alignment's 44%), more honest (57%), and more concerned with the fate of the citizens than that of the party (45%). Likud was able to benefit from having only been created 8 years prior, giving it an image of newness and innocence.
The 1981 elections also saw a rise in the use of ethnic ideas within the political discourse. While Likud and the Alignment were both led by Ashkenazi politicians, the Alignment was considered the party of the
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
, with the
Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
vote lost to Likud. The likelihood of Sephardim voting for Likud and Ashkenazim voting for the Alignment was more pronounced than ever before.
However, Likud enjoyed the advantage of still being able to appeal to a significant amount of Ashkenazi voters, while also maintaining their Sephardi popularity; in contrast, the Alignment was seen as even less Sephardi than in previous years.
Conduct
Police noted before election day that "there hasn’t been an election campaign in Israel as violent as the present one". A reason for the violence may have been that this was the first elections in which the public believed both sides had a chance of winning, causing unrest and agitation.
Results
Scholars
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...
attribute the Likud's comeback, from its lowest point six months prior to the 1981 legislative election, to five main factors: incumbency, candidates, images, campaigns, violence, and ethnicity.
Likud's role as the ruling party enabled the party to use its
incumbency advantage to increase popularity with policy implementation. The party implemented tax programs that lowered prices for consumers, subsidized oil products at a higher rate than ever before, and used foreign policy that made the Alignment seem unpatriotic if they argued against the moves.
Aftermath
Menachim Begin (of the Likud) became
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
and in August 1981 included the
National Religious Party
The National Religious Party ( he, מִפְלָגָה דָּתִית לְאֻומִּית, ''Miflaga Datit Leumit'', commonly known in Israel by its Hebrew acronym Mafdal, ) was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist moveme ...
,
Agudat Yisrael, the Movement for the Heritage of Israel (
Tami
Tami or TAMI may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tami (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with either the given name or nickname
* Mark Tami (born 1962), British politician and Member of Parliament
* Pierluigi Tami ...
) and
Tehiya
Tehiya ( he, תחיה, ''Revival''), originally known as Banai (Hebrew: , an acronym for ''Land of Israel Loyalists' Alliance'' (Hebrew: )), then Tehiya-Bnai (Hebrew: ), was an ultranationalist political party in Israel. The party existed from ...
in his coalition to form the
nineteenth government.
After Begin resigned due to health reasons,
Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Shamir ( he, יצחק שמיר, ; born Yitzhak Yezernitsky; October 22, 1915 – June 30, 2012) was an Israeli politician and the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms, 1983–1984 and 1986–1992. Before the establishment ...
formed the
twentieth government in October 1983, with the same coalition parties.
During the Knesset term, two MKs defected from Likud to the Alignment.
Haim Drukman left the National Religious Party and sat as an independent MK, whilst two other MKs left the National Religious Party and formed
Gesher – Zionist Religious Centre before returning two weeks later. Telem split into
Ometz and the
Movement for the Renewal of Social Zionism, whilst Ratz joined the Alignment but then broke away again.
See also
*
1980 Israeli Labor Party leadership election
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.
This was the third of four leadership contests in which Rabin and Peres faced each ...
References
External links
Historical overview of the Tenth KnessetKnesset website
Knesset website
{{Israeli elections
Israeli legislative
Legislative election
Legislative elections in Israel
June 1981 events in Asia
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...