Israeli legislative election, 1973

Elections for the 8th Knesset

← 1969 31 December 1973 1977 →

Party Leader % Seats ± Alignment Golda Meir 39.6% 51 -5 Likud Menachem Begin 30.2% 39 +7 Mafdal Yosef Burg 8.3% 10 -2 Religious Torah Front Shlomo Lorincz 3.8% 5 -1 Independent Liberals Moshe Kol 3.6% 4 0 Maki Meir Vilner 3.4% 4 +1 Ratz Shulamit Aloni 2.2% 3 New Progress and Development Seif el-Din el-Zoubi 1.4% 2 0 Moked Meir Pa'il 1.4% 1 New Arab List for Bedouin and Villagers Hamad Abu Rabia 1.0% 1 New This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.

Prime Minister before Prime Minister after Golda Meir Alignment Golda Meir Alignment

The Elections for the eighth Knesset were held on 31 December 1973. Voter turnout was 78.6%. The election was postponed for two months because of the Yom Kippur War.

¹Aryeh Eliav left the Alignment and merged with Ratz to form Ya'ad - Civil Rights Movement. The new party later broke up when Eliav and Marcia Freedman left to set up the Independent Socialist Faction, whilst Shulamit Aloni and Boaz Moav returned to Ratz.

²Hillel Seidel defected from the Independent Liberals to Likud.

³ The Religious Torah Front broke up into Agudat Yisrael (three seats) and Poalei Agudat Yisrael (two seats).

⁴ Progress and Development and the Arab List for Bedouins and Villagers merged into the Alignment (with which they were already associated) before breaking away to form the United Arab List).

⁵ Mordechai Ben-Porat broke away from the Alignment and remained a single MK.

⁶ Mapam broke away from the Alignment but rejoined it soon after.

Golda Meir of the Alignment formed the sixteenth government on 10 March 1974, including the National Religious Party and the Independent Liberals in her coalition, with 22 ministers. Meir resigned on 11 April 1974 after the Agranat Commission had published its interim report on the Yom Kippur War.

The Alignment's Yitzhak Rabin formed the seventeenth government on 3 June 1974, including Ratz, the Independent Liberals, Progress and Development and the Arab List for Bedouins and Villagers. The new government had 19 ministers. The National Religious Party joined the coalition on 30 October and Ratz left on the 6 November, by which time there were 21 ministers.