1999 Israeli general election

The second Prime Ministerial election in Israel was held on 17 May, 1999 alongside elections for the 15th Knesset.

Context

This was only the second election for Prime Minister in Israel, the 1996 vote having been an extremely tight contest between Binyamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres.

The vote was held at a time when negotiations with the Palestinians were going badly. Although the Wye River Memorandum had passed the Knesset, it had alienated both the left (who claimed the peace process was moving too slowly) and the right, who were unhappy with territorial concessions.

Originally five candidates planned to run:

• Ehud Barak of One Israel (an alliance of Labour, Gesher and Meimad)
• Benny Begin of Herut – The National Movement
• Azmi Bishara of Balad
• Yitzhak Mordechai of the Centre Party
• Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud

However, Begin, Bishara (the first Israeli Arab to stand for Prime Minister) and Mordechai dropped out after it became clear they could not win, and were costing votes to the major candidates (Barak and Netanyahu) at their end of the political spectrum.

Results

Candidate	Party	Votes	% of vote
Ehud Barak	One Israel	1,791,020	56.1%
Binyamin Netanyahu	Likud	1,402,474	43.9%

Aftermath

Although Barak won the Prime Ministerial election comfortably, his One Israel alliance won only 26 seats, meaning he had to form a convoluted coalition with Shas, Meretz, Yisrael BaAliyah, the Centre Party, the National Religious Party and United Torah Judaism.

When Barak's government collapsed after the start of the Second Intifada and the October Israeli Arab riots in 2000, Barak called new elections for Prime Minister in the hope of winning an authoritative mandate. However, he was well-beaten by Ariel Sharon and subsequently resigned from politics.

External links

• Election results Knesset website