2006 Israeli legislative election
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All 120 seats in the Knesset 61 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 63.55% ( 4.26 pp) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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Elections for the 17th Knesset were held in Israel on 28 March 2006. The voting resulted in a plurality of seats for the then-new Kadima party, followed by the Labor Party, and a major loss for the Likud party.
After the election, the government was formed by the Kadima, Labor,
Background
2003 election and later developments
In the 2003 elections, Likud, under the leadership of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, achieved a convincing win by Israeli standards, winning 38 seats in the 120-member Knesset (parliament), with Sharon perceived as tough anti-terrorist leader on the wings of his 2002 Operation Defensive Shield. Labor, led by Amram Mitzna under slogans for "disengagement" from Gaza, won only 19 seats and did not initially join the new government.
Following the 2003 elections Likud suffered severe divisions over several positions taken by Sharon, most notably his adoption of a plan to withdraw Israeli settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip.[1] This was exactly the position taken by Labor and denounced as being defeatist by Sharon prior to the 2003 elections, so it caused tension within the Likud party and in January 2005 Shimon Peres led Labor into a coalition with Sharon to allow the Gaza withdrawal to proceed despite opposition from a majority of Likud members.
Fall of the Likud-led government
As of the fall of 2005, Peres's Labor Party was providing the votes necessary for the Likud-led 30th Government to maintain its majority support in the Knesset. In Labor's internal leadership election scheduled for early November, Amir Peretz campaigned for the party leadership on a platform that included withdrawing Labor from the Sharon-led coalition. Peretz narrowly defeated Peres in the leadership election on November 9, 2005, and two days later all Labor ministers resigned from the Cabinet and Labor withdrew its support for the Government, leaving it without majority support in the Knesset.
Negotiations between Sharon and Peretz set the election date for 28 March 2006. "I'm letting him [Sharon] choose a date in that period between the end of February and the end of March and whatever date he chooses is acceptable to me, the earlier the better," Peretz said at the time. Sharon said: "As soon as it became clear that the existing political framework was falling apart, I came to the conclusion that the best thing for the country is to hold new elections as soon as possible."
Likud split and the formation of Kadima
The impending elections raised the prospect of a leadership election within Likud, with former Prime Minister
Although Kadima was formed primarily of former Likud members, Peres (having lost the Labor leadership election to Peretz) also announced his support for the new party, and later officially left Labor. Peres cited Sharon's leadership skills as a reason for his party switch.
Polls taken through the end of 2005 showed Sharon's Kadima Party enjoying a commanding lead over both Labor and Likud.
Party leadership and list selections
Sharon, as founder of Kadima and incumbent Prime Minister, was universally expected to lead the new party into the March 2006 election. However, on 4 January 2006, Sharon suffered a
In the
On 30 January 2006 the right-wing
This separation occurred following polls that predicted that, when running separately, these two major rightist blocs would receive between 20 and 25 seats (in the previous elections, they had received only 7), and it turned out to be true: the National Union bloc received 9 seats and Israel Beytenu received 11.
Likud selected Netanyahu as its leader, over then-Defense Minister Silvan Shalom. At Netanyahu's insistence, Shalom and the other remaining Likud ministers resigned from the Olmert-led government in January 2006.
Polls conducted from January through March showed Kadima still enjoying a substantial lead, though somewhat reduced from polls taken under Sharon's leadership.
Key issues
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Fighting Palestinian militancy
During the
During the 2006 electoral campaign, the center and right parties vowed to continue the relentless fight against the Palestinian militants. Even
Solutions to the conflict
In the wake of the
- Meretz supported bilateral negotiations as the only path towards peace.
- Convergence Plan" (תכנית ההתכנסות).
- Yisrael Beytenusupported continued Israeli control of most settlements, but offers to cede some Israeli Arab cities and uninhabited territories to the Palestinian Authority in exchange.
- Jordan Valley, the whole of Jerusalem and the settlement blocs.
- National Union-National Religious Party vehemently opposed any more unilateral withdrawals, and supports the strengthening of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
- Herut – The National Movement and the Jewish National Front, two fringe nationalist groups, supported a massive population transfer of the Arabs under Israeli control – both Palestinians and Israeli citizens – to neighbouring Arab countries as a solution to the conflict. While Herut supports "voluntary transfer" through the creation of a compensation mechanism, the Front does not rule out forced transfer.
Economic and social issues
Since Israel's establishment, the political scene has been dominated by security and peace issues. The major parties were mainly divided by the different approaches with regard to the
The 2006 elections mark the first time a major party – the Labor Party – has placed economic and social issues on top of its agenda. This is mainly attributed to Amir Peretz's surprise victory over Shimon Peres in the November 2005 Labor leadership election; Peretz had left the party a few years earlier to form the socialist One Nation, which had only recently merged into Labor.
Labor's
In addition to Labor, the orthodox religious Shas, which has always claimed to champion the poor in Israeli society, also attacked Netanyahu's policies during the campaign, as did a number of small (and often new) socialist parties.
Israel as a Jewish and democratic state
Relations between Jewish Law (Halacha) and the state
From 1948 to 2003, religious parties played a part in every coalition formed in Israel.
Shinui, Hetz, Meretz, and Ale Yarok wish to promote what they see as key secular and democratic principles:
- Allowing businesses to remain open, and public transportation to operate, during the Sabbath;
- Abolishing the Orthodox monopoly on conducting marriage and divorce between Jewish couples (which in fact prevents some couples from getting married in Israel) by instituting civil marriage, including for same-sex couples;
- Allowing the public sale of pork (forbidden under Kashrut laws);
- Committing ultra-Orthodox religious scholars to military service.
The various religious parties, both Zionist (National Religious Party) and Haredi (Shas, United Torah Judaism) strictly oppose these changes. They wish to see Israel's Jewish character strengthened through further enforcement of the Sabbath and changes in the educational system.
Relations between Jews and Arabs
The Arab parties, the largest of which are the United Arab List, Balad and Hadash (a Jewish-Arab communist party, with mostly Arab composition and electorate), advocate abolition of all forms of ethnic inequality, and the establishment of a democratic bi-national state.
Procedures
Elections to the Knesset allocate 120 seats by
After official results are published, the
Parliament factions
The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the
Extraparliamentary parties
Tafnit | פ | Uzi Dayan | New party, anti-corruption | |
Ale Yarok | קנ | Boaz Wachtel
|
Advocates legalization of marijuana and ecological issues, legalizing same-sex marriage
| |
Brit Olam | ה | Ofer Lifshits
|
||
Gil
|
זך | Rafi Eitan | Retiree (pensioner) rights | |
Organization for Democratic Action
|
ק | Agbariyyah Asama' | Communist | |
Green Party | רק | Pe'er Visner | Environmentalist | |
HaLev
|
פץ | Eliezer Levinger | Consumer rights | |
Arab National Party | קפ | Muhammad Kanan | Arab, anti-Zionist | |
New Zionism
|
צה | Ya'akov Kfir | Advocates rights of Holocaust survivors | |
Jewish National Front | כ | Baruch Marzel | Jewish nationalist, Kahanist | |
Lev LaOlim
|
פז | Ovadia Fathov | ||
Herut – The National Movement | נץ | Michael Kleiner | Nationalist | |
Lekhem
|
ז | Yisrael Tvito | ||
Leader | ף | Aleksandr Radko | Russian immigrant, related to Liberal Democratic Party of Russia | |
Oz LaAniyim
|
פכ | Felix Angel | Socialist | |
Atid Ehad | זה | Avraham Negusah | Ethiopian and American immigrants | |
Justice for All
|
קז | Yaakov Shlosser | Men's rights | |
Tzomet | כץ | Moshe Grin | Nationalist |
Note: traditional
Pre-election opinion polling
Numbers in the table below are seats, out of a total of 120, as predicted by opinion polls prior to the election.
As the electoral threshold stood at 2%, it was impossible for a party to receive only one seat in the Knesset.
Note: Most Israeli pollsters lump the "Arab" parties together, so that the listed number is the total number of seats that the three main Arab lists (Raam, Balad, Hadash) were expected to obtain. In the event that one or more of the three lists would not have passed the 2% threshold, the representation of these parties would have been one to three fewer seats than listed by the polls.
Party | 22 March | 23 March | 26 March | 27 March | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Geocartographia | Jerusalem Post
|
Teleseker | Dahaf2 | Globes- Smith | Dialogue | Maagar Mohot | Dahaf2 | Teleseker | Jerusalem Post | Ma'ariv | |
Kadima 14 | 33.5 | 34 | 37 | 36 | 34 | 36 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 33.5 | 34 |
Likud 27 | 16.5 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 14 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 14 |
Labor 21
|
17.5 | 19.5 | 21 | 20 | 21 | 18 | 19 | 21 | 17 | 20.5 | 17 |
Shinui 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Shas 11 | 9.5 | 11 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 8 | 11 | 12 | 10 | 12 |
Arab parties () 8 | 8.5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 7 |
Meretz-Yachad 6
|
6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
National Union – Mafdal 7 & 6 1 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 9 | 9.5 | 12 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 9.5 | 11 |
Yisrael Beiteinu 7 2 | 10.5 | 10.5 | 10 | 11 | 10.5 | 7 | 15 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 12 |
United Torah Judaism 5 | 7 | 5.5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
Ale Yarok 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Gil 0
|
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Tafnit 0 | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Green Party 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1 National Union and Yisrael Beiteinu together have 7 seats.
2 Dahaf – published in Yedioth Ahronoth (and/or its affiliate site Ynet) with the remark "The votes of the undecided were assigned to parties on the basis of additional questions."
Results
Oz LaAniyim 1,214 | 0.04 | 0 | New | | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arab National Party | 738 | 0.02 | 0 | New | |||||
Leader | 580 | 0.02 | 0 | 0 | |||||
Total | 3,137,064 | 100.00 | 120 | 0 | |||||
Valid votes | 3,137,064 | 98.44 | |||||||
Invalid/blank votes | 49,675 | 1.56 | |||||||
Total votes | 3,186,739 | 100.00 | |||||||
Registered voters/turnout | 5,014,622 | 63.55 | |||||||
Source: IDI |
By city
Party | Ariel
|
Ashdod | Ashkelon | Bat Yam | Bnei Brak | Beersheba | Eilat | Haifa | Herzliya | Holon | Jerusalem | Kiryat Shmona | Modi'in
|
Netanya | Ofakim | Petah Tikva | Rishon LeZion | Ramat Gan | Tel Aviv | Umm al-Fahm |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kadima | 12.4 | 19.5 | 19.7 | 25.1 | 3.1 | 21.5 | 31.4 | 28.9 | 35.1 | 28.9 | 12 | 17.6 | 32.3 | 23.8 | 9.1 | 23.4 | 32.4 | 30 | 27.8 | 1.4 |
Labor-Meimad
|
3.9 | 10.3 | 11.2 | 11.8 | 1.9 | 16.7 | 21.2 | 16.9 | 17.5 | 14.5 | 10.3 | 17.8 | 20.4 | 10.9 | 16.3 | 12.2 | 15 | 16.8 | 19.8 | 3.7 |
Likud | 24.1 | 10.1 | 13 | 11.6 | 3 | 9.5 | 9.1 | 8.3 | 8.7 | 11.4 | 10.6 | 12.1 | 10.2 | 12.2 | 10 | 11 | 10.7 | 10.9 | 8.7 | – |
Yisrael Beiteinu | 34.6 | 19.9 | 22.3 | 16.9 | 1.8 | 20.1 | 7.3 | 12.1 | 5.4 | 8.7 | 6.5 | 16.7 | 5.1 | 13.5 | 16.3 | 11 | 10.9 | 5 | 4.2 | – |
Shas | 4.2 | 17.1 | 15.1 | 12.3 | 23.8 | 14 | 8.9 | 3.6 | 5.6 | 12.8 | 15.2 | 14.3 | 2.8 | 12.9 | 22.2 | 9.3 | 6.6 | 5.5 | 7.5 | 0.7 |
Gil
|
5 | 3.2 | 3.8 | 9.5 | 1.6 | 4.2 | 7.7 | 7.1 | 9.5 | 11.6 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 8.1 | 6.3 | 0.7 | 9 | 10.7 | 13.1 | 9.2 | – |
National Union-NRP | 8.5 | 4.4 | 6.8 | 5.2 | 5.9 | 6.4 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 3.9 | 12.2 | 10.4 | 8 | 9.1 | 6.7 | 12 | 3.9 | 6.8 | 3.3 | – |
United Torah Judaism | 0.3 | 9.3 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 56.4 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 18.6 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 2.2 | 13.3 | 4 | 0.8 | 1 | 1.3 | – |
Meretz
|
0.5 | 1 | 1.1 | 1.5 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 2.2 | 3.8 | 6 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 0.8 | 5.3 | 1.6 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.6 | 4.3 | 8.7 | 2.3 |
United Arab List-Ta'al | – | – | – | – | – | 0.1 | – | 0.2 | – | – | 0.1 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 0.7 | 10.6 |
Hadash | – | – | – | 0.1 | – | 0.1 | 0.1 | 2.8 | 0.1 | – | 0.3 | 0.1 | – | – | – | – | – | 0.2 | 0.9 | 56.1 |
Balad | – | – | – | – | – | 0.1 | – | 2.9 | – | – | 0.2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 0.3 | 21.7 |
Source: Yedioth Ahronoth Walla.co.il |
Immediate impact and coalition formation
For the second time in Israeli history (previously in 1999), no dominant party sat in the Knesset, only two medium (Kadima and Labor) and small-sized ones. Following the election Olmert stated that he prefers entering into a coalition with Labor, and that Peretz is a "suitable partner."
On 2 April both Gil and Meretz recommended to Katzav that Olmert become Prime Minister. The next day, at a joint appearance, Olmert and Peretz announced that Kadima and Labor would be coalition partners and that Peretz would advise the President to tap Olmert as Prime Minister.[2]
On 6 April President Katzav formally asked Olmert to form a government officially making him Prime Minister-designate. A
In October 2006 with the coalition shaken after the 2006 Lebanon War, Olmert brought the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu into government as well. However, they left the coalition in January 2008 in protest at peace talks with the Palestinian National Authority.
According to the Congressional Research Service:
The March 28, 2006, Knesset election results were surprising in many respects. The voter turnout of 63.2% was the lowest ever. The contest was widely viewed as a referendum on Kadima’s plans to disengage from the West Bank, but it also proved to be a vote on economic policies that many believed had harmed the disadvantaged. Kadima came in first, but by a smaller margin than polls had predicted. Labor, emphasizing socioeconomic issues, came in a respectable second. Likud lost 75% of its votes from 2003 because Kadima drained off supporters. Its decline also was due to Netanyahu, whose policies as Finance Minister were blamed for social distress and whose opposition to unilateral disengagement was unpopular with an increasingly pragmatic, non-ideological electorate.[3]
See also
- Party lists for the 2006 Israeli legislative election
- List of 17th Knesset members
- 2006 Israeli Labor Party primary
Notes
- ^ National Union and Yisrael Beiteinu ran as a joint list.
- ^ The official turnout is based on the number of eligible voters, however, that number is somewhat misleading since the count of eligible voters includes a significant number of Israeli citizens who in fact cannot vote. This consists mainly of a large number of citizens residing or travelling abroad on the day of the election (and are thus prohibited from voting, unless they are members of the diplomatic corps who are allowed to vote abroad; otherwise they must travel to Israel on election day if they wish to exercise their right to vote). It also includes some deceased voters who have yet to be removed from the voter registration rolls. All Israeli citizens are automatically registered to vote, and thus in Israel there is no distinction between registered voters and eligible voters, as there is in the U.S., for example. Moreover, the rules defining who is allowed to vote by absentee ballot are much more restrictive than those in the U.S., for example. When these factors are taken into account the actual voter turnout is about 5% higher than the figure cited above.
References
- ^ Events » Israel » Disengagement from Gaza » Gaza Vs. Berlin
- ^ Barkat, Amiram. "Katsav to summon Olmert on Thursday to form government – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
- ^ "Israel: Background and Relations with the United States" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-03-14.