Note that the lists of candidates and platforms in this table are in Hebrew.

About the 1992 Elections

The 12th Knesset was one of the most tumultuous in the history of the State. The national unity government was brought down by a vote of no-confidence initiated by the Alignment the first and only time in the history of the State that a government fell in this manner. After Peres failed to form an alternative government, following what was nicknamed by Rabin "the dirty trick," Shamir formed a narrow right-wing coalition. However, the general conduct of the politicians resulted in a steep decline in the public faith in the political system. A wave of public protests, under the title “We’re sick of you corrupt people,” led to the adoption of a reform in the governmental system in the form of direct elections for the Prime Minister the introduction of primaries for selecting the candidates for the election lists in the Labor Party, and later several other parties, and much more personal election campaigning, with emphasis on the competition between the leaders of the two main parties: Rabin of the Labor Party against Shamir of the Likud. The major issues in the campaign for the elections for the 13th Knesset were the moral integrity of the political system, and the political process begun at the Madrid Conference of October/November 1991.

Of the 25 lists that ran in the elections, only 10 passed the electoral threshold, which had been raised to 1.5%. The Labor Party, which was led by Yitzhak Rabin, received 44 seats, outdoing the Likud beat the Likud, which received 32 seats, for the first time since 1973, while the left-wing parties (Ratz, Mapam and Shinui), which ran in a single list (Meretz), did well with 12 seats. The right-wing parties, on the other hand, lost many votes due to fragmentation, and the Tehiya didn't get in. On the other hand Tzomet, headed by Rafael Eitan (Raful), received eight seats, thanks to its leader's "clean" image.

The election results left the Labor Party with a preventive bloc of 61, together with Meretz and the Arab parties, but Rabin rejected forming a government with the Arab parties and managed to convince Shas to join his coalition. The new government was supported by the 62 MKs of the three coalition partners, and the five MKs of the Arab parties from the outside.

Following Yitzhak Rabin's assassination by a Jewish assassin over the Oslo Accords with the PLO, Peres formed a short lived government that served until the elections for the 14th Knesset.

For Additional Reading

Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel 1992, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds.), Israel at the Polls 1992, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.