Legislative elections were held in Israel on 23 July 1984 to elect the eleventh Knesset. Voter turnout was 78.8%.Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p127 The results saw the Alignment return to being the largest party in the Knesset, a status it had lost in 1977. However, the party could not form a government with any of the smaller parties, resulting in a grand coalition government with Likud, with both party leaders, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, holding the post of Prime Minister for two years each.
Background The ongoing South Lebanon conflict
Bus 300 affair
Parliamentary factions
The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the 10th Knesset. Name Ideology Symbol Leader 1981 resultSeats at 1983dissolution Votes (%) Seats Likud National liberalism Yitzhak Shamir37.1% Alignment Social democracyLabor Zionism Shimon Peres36.6% Mafdal Religious Zionism Yosef Burg4.9% Agudat Yisrael Religious conservatism Avraham Yosef Shapira3.7% Hadash CommunismSocialism Meir Vilner3.4% Tehiya UltranationalismRevisionist Zionism Yuval Ne'emanGeula Cohen2.3 Tami Religious ZionismMizrahi interests Aharon Abuhatzira2.3% Telem Centrism Moshe Dayan1.6% OmetzConservatismYigal Hurvitzdid not existMovement for the Renewal of Social ZionismZionism -Mordechai Ben-Poratdid not exist Shinui LiberalismCentrism Amnon Rubinstein1.5% Ratz ProgressivismSecularism Shulamit Aloni1.4%
Campaign
Since the previous election, hyperinflation increased to 350%. Up to election week, opinion polls (among those with telephones) showed a clear lead for the Alignment, scoring 42% over the Likud's 28%.
1984 became an important year for the Arab vote. Turnout went from 68% in 1981 to 76% in 1984, thanks to the rise of the Progressive List for Peace. The new party was especially successful in getting younger Arab voters to the ballot box. Hadash called for voters to 'eliminate' the Progressives. The Progressives claimed that the actions of Hadash were akin to 'fascism, Nazism, and the Gush Emunim'. Hadash accused the Progressives of being set up on the command of the PLO, as well as being CIA agents. The Electoral Commission briefly banned the Progressives from running due to the alleged ties to the PLO that Hadash had raised. Nayef Hawatmeh of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned the Progressives for 'serving' the Likud and the Alignment.
Infighting also happened within the Jewish left. Ratz advised people not to vote for Aryeh Eliav's list, claiming it would fail to surpass the threshold, and that "several hundred, and perhaps, God forbid, several thousand votes from good people" would be burnt. Ratz had previously offered to place Eliav second on their list. This came after the disintegration of Eliav's Sheli party, which Ratz had absorbed many remnants of. When a poll was published showing Eliav over the electoral threshold, he wrote to Ratz leader Shulamit Aloni, “I’m glad we’re both clearing the electoral threshold; see you in the next Knesset". Eliav only received 0.74% of votes, which did not win him a seat in the Knesset.
Ratz and Shinui had a public spat when a report in Haaretz claimed that Ratz had received IS40,000 to support its election campaign in exchange for abstaining on a vote around the parliamentary immunity of Aharon Abuhatzira. David Zucker of Ratz denied this. Ratz then published a leaflet criticising Shinui for its surplus agreement with the centrist Yahad, and for supporting the government on the 1982 Lebanon War.
Morasha and Mafdal's conflict was also made public; the two parties enlisted the support of multiple rabbis to try and gain the upper hand over each other.
Party slogans Party or allianceOriginal sloganEnglish translationLikud"The people want Likud" Alignment"" "The Alignment is the only hope"""Mafdal"No buts about it - vote for Mafdal!"Hadash"""A new [Hadash] line for peace"Tehiya-Tzomet"""Tehiya-Tzomet: at the head of the entire Nationalist Zionist camp"Shinui"This time a government without criminals"Ratz"""Either you run [Ratz] or get left behind"Kach"Kahane: The man who says what you think"Shas"Shas - restoring the crown to its former glory"Progressive List for Peace"Justice is on our side - power is on theirs! Strengthen us, weaken them!""Yes to equality. Yes to peace. Yes to a Palestinian state."Yahad"I trust Weizman!"
Surplus-vote agreements
Two parties could make an agreement so that they were considered to be running on a joint list when leftover seats were distributed. The Bader–Ofer method favors larger lists, meaning that a joint list is more likely to receive leftover seats than each list would individually. If such a joint list were to receive a leftover seat, the Bader–Ofer method would be applied a second time to determine which of the parties that make up the joint list would receive it.The Distribution of Knesset Seats Among the Lists – the Bader-Offer Method, Knesset website The following agreements were signed by parties prior to the election:
Alignment - Ratz Shas - Agudat Yisrael Shinui - Yahad Likud - Tehiya-Tzomet
Opinion polls The parties can be grouped by the Israel Broadcasting Authority's bloc classification:
Left-wing: Jewish: Alignment, Ratz, Shinui, Aryeh Eliav List Sheli Arab: Hadash, PLFP Right-wing: Secular: Likud, Tehiya, Telem, Ometz, Movement for the Renewal of Social Zionism (MRSZ). Hadashot also included Kach in this grouping. Religious: Agudat Yisrael, Shas, Tami, Mafdal, Morasha
Seat projections Note: Political blocs do not necessarily determine the exact makeup of post-election coalitions. Hadashot published most polls in percentages, which have been approximated into seat totals through the D'Hondt method, assuming surplus-vote agreements stay the same when possible. DatePoll clientLikudAlignmentMafdalAgudat YisraelHadashPLFPTehiyaTamiTelemShinuiRatzShasYahadMorashaKachOmetzMRSZSheliAryeh EliavOthersLeadLeftRightLeadFinal results4144424251defunct33432110defunct0035664823 July 1984Exit poll on Channel 14346524131433221000036060Tie22 July 1984Hadashot39534 - - -6 -5 -1 - - -1 - - -1420 July 1984Alignment40524 -476 -4 - -10 -0 -1366541220 July 1984Davar3753433.5 -522252 - - - - -1665.5N/A20 July 1984Hadashot40524.54 - -6.5 - -3 - - - - - - -131255421317 July 1984Ma'ariv3652425612.53232~11 - -0.5 -1866541217 July 1984Davar365242316 -2.532320100 -1664.555.5919 June 1984Hadashot4059444 -31 -2 - - - - -031970472323 May 1984Hadashot3060546 -22 -4 - - - - -083070422811 May 1984Hadashot295830.9%46 -22 -3 - - - -0.2% -829694326Outgoing Knesset4649644 -3321 - - - -11 -03566481981 results4847644 -33221 - - -0.3% - -0.5% -01546612 A hypothetical poll was conducted on 14 May 1984, where people were asked who they would vote for in the event of Likud splitting back into Herut and the Liberals. 18.4% of people would have voted for Herut and 2.3% for the Liberals.
Leadership polling +DatePoll clientRabinNavonPeresWeizmanSharonShamir16 November 1981Davar27.3%15.4%13.2%12.9%12.1%4.6%
Results
Aftermath
Hadash lost 4% of the Arab vote, going from 38.1% to 34.1%. The Alignment dropped from 29% to 22.5%, and the Likud from 7% to 4.6%. Yahad won 5.9% of Arab votes, Shinui won 5.2% (the same as in 1981), Mafdal won 4.2%, Yahad won 5.9% and the Progressives won 18.2%.
The Alignment won 19% of the Druze vote, a drop from 30% in 1981. Likud fell from 35.5% to 19.2%. Shinui won out, with 24.5% of Druze votes compared to 7.5% in 1981.
The Alignment and the Likud remained steady in the Bedouin community; they won 49.2 and 10.3% respectively, close to their 1981 vote totals. Hadash fell from 10.5% to 4.4%. The Progressives won 10.1%.
Due to the stalemate produced by the elections, it was decided to form a national unity government, with the Alignment and Likud holding the leadership for two years each. The Alignment's Shimon Peres formed the twenty-first government on 13 September 1984. Alongside the Alignment and Likud, the coalition government included the National Religious Party, Agudat Yisrael, Shas, Morasha, Shinui and Ometz. Outside national unity governments formed during wartime (notably the government formed during the Six-Day War in the term of the sixth Knesset, which had 111 MKs), it was the largest-ever coalition in Israeli political history, with 97 MKs.
In accordance with the rotation agreement, Peres resigned in 1986 and Likud's Yitzhak Shamir formed the twenty-second government on 20 October 1986. Shinui left the coalition on 26 May 1987.
The eleventh Knesset also contained two controversial parties, Kach and the Progressive List for Peace (PLFP). Kach was a far-right party that advocated the expulsion of most Israeli Arabs, and although it had run in previous elections, it had not passed the electoral threshold. Ultimately the party was banned after a law was passed barring parties that incited racism. The attempts made to stop Kach from competing in the next elections also affected the PLFP, as the addition of section 7a to the Basic Law dealing with the Knesset ("Prevention of Participation of Candidates List") included the banning of parties that denied Israel's existence as a Jewish state:
A candidates' list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include one of the following... negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
On this basis, the Central Elections Committee initially banned the PLFP from running for the 1988 elections, arguing that its policies promoted the scrapping of Israel as a Jewish state. However, the decision was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel, and the party was able to compete in the elections, winning two seats. Nevertheless, the law was not overturned, the Supreme Court merely deciding it was impossible to determine if "the real, central and active purpose [of the PFLP] is to bring about the elimination of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people",Entry barriers to the Knesset race Haaretz and attempts were made to ban the Israeli Arab parties Balad (PFLP's partial successor) and Ta'al using the same law prior to the 2003 elections.
During the Knesset term nine MKs left the Alignment; six to re-establish Mapam (one, Muhammed Wattad, later defected from Mapam to Hadash), Abdulwahab Darawshe to establish the Arab Democratic Party, Yossi Sarid defected to Ratz and Yitzhak Artzi to Shinui. The Alignment also gained three MKs when Yahad merged into it.
Ometz and Tami merged into Likud. Mordechai Virshubski defected from Shinui to Ratz. Rafael Eitan broke away from Tehiya to establish Tzomet. Haim Drukman defected from Morasha to the National Religious Party. Shimon Ben-Shlomo broke away from Shas to sit as an independent.
See also 1984 Herut leadership election 1984 Israeli Labor Party leadership election
References
External links Historical overview of the Eleventh Knesset Knesset website Election results Knesset website