ISRAELI LEGISLATIVE ELECTION, 1955

'Elections for the third Knesset' were held in Israel on 26 July, 1955. Voter turnout was 80.7%.

Contents

Results

Non-qualifiers

The Third Knesset

Seventh government

Eighth government

External links

Results

Party	Votes	% of vote	Seats at start of session	Seats at end of session
Mapai	274,735	32.2%	40	40
Herut	107,190	12.6%	15	15
General Zionists	87,099	10.2%	13	13
National Religious Party ¹	77,936	9.1%	11	11
Labour Unity	69,475	8.2%	10	10
Mapam	62,401	7.3%	9	9
Religious Torah Front ²	39,836	4.7%	6	6
Maki	38,492	4.5%	6	6
Progressive Party	37,661	4.4%	5	5
Democratic List for Israeli Arabs	15,475	1.8%	2	2
Progress and Work	12,511	1.5%	2	2
Agriculture and Development	9,791	1.1%	1	1
Non-qualifiers	20,617	2.4%	-	-
'Total'	'853,219'	'100%'	'120'	'120'

¹ Originally a coalition of Mizrahi and the Mizrahi Workers that ran for the election under the name ''National Religious Front'' before changing their name to ''Mizrahi Workers-Mizrahi'' and then the ''National Religious Party'' during the term of the Knesset.
² The Religious Torah Front changed their name to ''Agudat Israel - Agudat Israel Workers'', then reverted to their original title before the next elections.

Non-qualifiers

The following parties ran for election, but did not pass the electoral threshold of 1% (8,532 votes):

★ Likud - Popular Economic Movement

★ Elderly Workers Union

★ New Immigrants List

★ Sephardim and Oriental Communities

★ Sons of Yemen and Religious Nonpartisan Movement

★ The Arab List - The Centre

★ Yemenite Association

The Third Knesset

Unlike the second Knesset, the third Knesset was one of the most stable in Israel's history. There were only two governments, and it was the only Knesset to date during which none of the parties split or merged. As with the first and second Knesset, the speaker was Yosef Sprinzak until his death on 28 January, 1959. He was replaced by Labour Unity's Nahum Nir.

Seventh government

Main articles: Seventh government of Israel

The third Knesset started with David Ben-Gurion forming the seventh government of Israel (the previous two Knessets had six governments; two in the first and four in the second) on 3 November, 1955. His Mapai party formed a coalition with the National Religious Front (which later changed its name to the National Religious Party), Mapam, the Progressive Party, Labour Unity, and the three Israeli Arab parties, the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs, Progress and Work, Agriculture and Development. The government had 16 ministers. It collapsed when Ben Gurion resigned on 31 December, 1957 over the leaking of information from ministerial meetings.

Eighth government

Main articles: Eighth government of Israel

Ben Gurion formed the eighth government a week later on 7 January, 1958 with the same coalition partners. The number of ministers remained the same. The eighth government collapsed when Ben Gurion resigned again on 5 July, 1959 after Labour Unity and Mapam had voted against the government on the issue of selling arms to West Germany and refused to leave the coalition. Elections for the fourth Knesset were called for 3 November, 1959.

External links

★ Election results on the Knesset website

★ The third Knesset on the Knesset website