Israeli legislative election, 1999

 

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The Elections for the 15th Knesset were held on 17 May, 1999 alongside simultaneous elections for Prime Minister.

Context

The elections were held at a time when negotiations with the Palestinians were going badly. Although the Wye River Memorandum had passed the Knesset, it had alienated both the left (who claimed the peace process was moving too slowly) and the right, who were unhappy with territorial concessions. The Likud-Gesher-Tzomet alliance had fallen apart, with more members leaving Likud to set up Herut – The National Movement and the Centre Party.

Netanyahu's government finally gave up the ghost due to difficulties in passing the state budget and in January 1999 passed a bill calling for early elections.

Before the elections, Ehud Barak's Labour Party formed an alliance with Gesher and Meimad called One Israel in the hope that a united front on the centre-left would give them enough seats to form a more stable coalition.

Results

Party	Votes	% of vote	Seats at start of session	Seats at end of session
One Israel 1	670,484	20.2%	26	0
Likud 2	468,103	14.1%	19	21
Shas	430,676	13.0%	17	17
Meretz	253,525	7.6%	10	10
Israel BaAliya 3	171,705	5.1%	6	4
Shinui	167,748	5.0%	6	6
Centre Party 2	165,622	5.0%	6	3
National Religious Party	140,307	4.2%	5	5
United Torah Judaism	125,741	3.7%	5	5
United Arab List 4	114,810	3.4%	5	2
National Union 5	100,181	3.0%	4	0
Hadash	87,022	2.6%	3	3
Yisrael Beiteinu 5	86,153	2.6%	4	0
Balad 6	66,103	1.9%	2	1
One Nation	64,143	1.9%	2	2
Non-qualifiers	197,093	6.0%	-	-
Total	3,309,416	100%	120	120
Labour-Meimad 1 2	-	-	0	25
National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu 5	-	-	0	7
Gesher 1	-	-	0	2
Democratic Choice 3	-	-	0	2
Arab National Party 4	-	-	0	2
Herut – The National Movement 5	-	-	0	1
National Unity – National Progressive Alliance 4	-	-	0	1
Ta'al 6	-	-	0	1
Lev 2	-	-	0	0
New Way 2	-	-	0	0

Note that Yisrael Beiteinu gained a seat after the vote-sharing process was completed.

¹ One Israel split into Labour-Meimad and Gesher

² Five members left the Centre Party. Three set up New Way and two created Lev, which immediately merged into Likud. Later, two of the three that set up New Way resigned from the Knesset and were replaced by Centre Party members, whilst the remaining New Way MK joined Labour-Meimad

³ Two MKs left Israel BaAliya to set up the Democratic Choice

⁴ Three MKs left the United Arab List; two set up the Arab National Party and one created National Unity - National Progressive Alliance

⁵ Herut broke away from the National Union, which became allied to Yisrael Beiteinu.

⁶ Ta'al broke away from Balad

Non-qualifiers

The following parties ran for election, but did not pass the electoral threshold of 1.5%:

• Pnina Rosenblum (44,953 - 1.3%)
• Power for Pensioners (37,525 - 1.1%)
• Ale Yarok (34,029 - 1.0%)
• The Third Way (26,290 - 0.7%)
• Green Party (13,292 - 0.4%)
• Tikva (7,366 - 0.2%)
• Casino Party (6,540 0.1%)
• Lev LaOlim - (6,311 - 0.1%)
• Negev Party (4,324 - 0.1%)
• Tzomet (4,128 - 0.1%)
• Natural Law Party (2,924 - 0.1%)
• Progressive Center Party (2,797 0.1%)
• Organization for Democratic Action (2,151 - 0.1%)
• New Arab Party (2,042 - 0.1%)
• Justice for All (1,257 - 0.04%)
• Moreshet Avot (1,164 - 0.04%)

Two parties initially signed up to participate in the election, but withdrew their candidacy before election day:

• Manhigut Yehudit
• Voice of the Environment

The Fifteenth Knesset

After winning the Prime Ministerial elections, Ehud Barak formed the 28th government of Israel on 6 July, 1999. His coalition included One Israel, Shas, Meretz, Israel BaAliyah, the Centre Party, the National Religious Party and United Torah Judaism, and initially had 16 ministers, though the number later rose to 24. Avraham Burg was appointed as Speaker of the Knesset.

United Torah Judaism left the coaltion in September 1999 after a breach of the Sabbath. The government finally collapsed on 10 December 2000 when Barak resigned in the face of the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Israeli Arab riots of October. Barak called new elections for the position of Prime Minister, which he lost to Ariel Sharon.

Sharon formed the 29th government on March 7, 2001. He set up a national unity government, including Likud, Labor-Meimad, Shas, the Centre Party, the National Religious Party, United Torah Judaism, Israel BaAliya, and National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu. Sharon's government had 26 ministers, which later rose to 29, necessitating the addition of a small table to the end of the Ministers row in the Knesset.

External links

• Election results on the official Knesset website (in English)

Israeli parliamentary elections
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Israeli prime ministerial elections
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