Evening star., 1948-12-26
tOHOld
First Election
January Voting to Test
Strength of Labor,
Freedom Groups
Bv JONES M. Lona

By jones N. Long
TEL AVN, Israel-The Jewish
State will hold its first election Jan.
uary Is and try to solve the politica
rift within its own ranks.
The real test will be between Ma.
PAL, Prime Minister David Ber
Gurion's strong labor party on the
center left, and the intensely ma.
tionalist Freedom Movement of Ir.
gun Zvai Leumi's former under.
ground chief, Manachim Begin, or
the right.
Thus the stakes will be:
/. Whether labor will show
enough strength to emerge as ma
jority government; whether the
present united-front government
will continue, and in what strength
will the extremist right emerge al
a major opposition in the govern
ment.
2. Whether Israel will continue
its present policy of forging a state
as sousldly as possible within the
general framework of United Ma.
tions' approval, or whether the ma
tionalist strength will commit the
government to aims beyond tht
present frontiers.
May Lack Majority
The general impression here. 6
month in advance Of the test, is
that both the Labor Mapai and the
nationalist extreme right will show
gains, with Mapai polling perhaps
SO to 40 per cent of the total vote
and the extreme right polling % tc
Is per cent.
From such a vote Ben Guiron's
party would emerge anew as the
strongest political force in Israel
but would lack majority and pre-
sumably would have to form new
united front government not essen
TALLY different from the present
provisional Council of State.
The difference would be that the
Freedom Movement of the man who
once led Palestine's biggest under
ground army would be an opposi-
ton, either in the government OF
out, on a strengthened basis.
The actual purpose Of the first
Israeli election, successfully post
poned from November to December
to January, is to elect 101 member
Constituent Assembly to draw ur
and adopt q constitution. Mean
while it would replace the present
Provisional Council.
477,000 to Vote
On the basis of Israel's first CEN
sus, taken in November, roughly
477,000 will be eligible to vote
Twenty-Five per cent of these are
in the army and debate already has
begun whether to permit political
campaigning in military camps.
Jerusalem will vote with the rest
of Israel, for despite its uncertain
status in the eyes of the United
Nations, it is Jewish to the people
of this new state.
Whether any of the $4,000 to 10000
Arabs remaining inside the boun-
daries of Israel will vote is uncer-
tain-but unlikely.
New immigrants streaming in at
an average of $4,000 a month will
not vote in the first election unless
they were here on the date Of the
census.
There is nothing in the election
that could be described as a test
between East and West. In the
last prostate voting in Palestine the
Communists polled slightly less than
q per cent. Their strength Is not
regarded as having increased above
that.
Fusion Rule Now
In the present fusion government
party representation is divided this
way:
Mapai Labor, 10 members; Mapam
United Labor, which is somewhat
left of Mapai, members; gen.
eral Zionist movements, the political
center, g.; Mizrachi, the orthodox
party, 8; Agulet Israel, ultra or
thodox, 8; Revisionists, the right
wing. 8: Communists, 1: other
groups, 4.
The Revisionist Party is the
parent of the dissident, extremist
Irgun Zvai Leumi. When I'LL as an
armed underground died in battle
with government forces over the
Altalena arms ship landing last sum-
mer, I'LL emerged as the freedom
movement, a legal political party
still led by Menachim Begin.
In the forthcoming elections the
|Revisionists and the Freedom Move
|ment are expected to vote as one.
distributed By the Associated eress)