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Israeli legislative election, 1955
Found in: Elections in Israel 1955 in Israel
Elections for the third Knesset were held in Israel on 26 July, 1955. Voter turnout was 80.7%.
Results
Originally a coalition of Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi that ran for the election under the name National Religious Front before changing their name to Hapoel HaMizrachi-Mizrahi and then the National Religious Party during the term of the Knesset.
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% :
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 Ahdut HaAvoda's Nahum Nir.
Seventh government
The third Knesset started with David Ben-Gurion forming the seventh government of Israel 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, Ahdut HaAvoda, 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
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
Historical overview of the Third Knesset Knesset website
Election results Knesset website
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Israeli legislative election, 1955