In talks with close political allies, Labor leader Defense Minister Ehud Barak has indicated he plans to remain in opposition, not urging the party to join any forming coalition.
After Labor suffered an embarrassing but expected defeat, party leaders see the need to “heed to the message of the voters and remain in opposition” as well as using the coming years to rebuild itself, hoping to return to its former days of glory.
Following are the number of seats held by Labor since the establishment of the state in 1948:
1951 (45),
1955 (50),
1959 (54),
1961 (50),
1965 (55),
1969 (56),
1973 (51),
1977 (32),
1981 (47),
1984 (39),
1988 (39),
1992 (44),
1996 (34),
1999 (26),
2003 (19),
2006 (19),
2009 (13) (based on Channel 2 exit poll).
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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3 Responses
1. You aren’t adding up all the factions correctly. For example, in 1959, the groups that eventually became Labor had 59 seats (Mapai, Ahdut Avodah and affiliated Arab parties).
2. You should look at the number of socialists in the kenesset, including Mapam and Maki. By that standard, they had 71 socialist seats in 1959, and that number was pretty consistent during the initial period, 1948-1967. By contract, today they are down to 16 seats
This is a fascinating chart. Oslo is signed in 1993, and since then Labor has lost votes in every election.
#2 – when you adjust to include all socialists, you see them running around 70 seats in the 1950s and 1960s, and then declining steadily and consistently. They might have been making a recovery pre-Oslo, but that isn’t clear. Their basic problem is the “Labor Zionism”, which was always viciously anti-Torah as well as anti-Sefardi, has been consigned to the “dustbin of history”, where it belongs.