Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion today urged Israel’s dominant Mapai party to adopt as their entire platform for the forthcoming election campaign a proposal to change Israel’s electoral system to a district representation type similar to that of Britain, Elimination of the present proportional representation system where the voters cast their ballots for party lists on a countrywide basis would tend to do away with small party representation in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.
Addressing a meeting attended by 500 Mapai leaders, Mr. Ben-Gurion proposed that the new Knesset which would convene after the forthcoming elections, pass a district representation election law and dissolve itself with subsequent elections taking place under the new system. “Only in this way, ” he declared, “could Mapai fulfill its tasks and not by negotiating for any two-party front,” he added, referring to current merger talks between Mapai and Achdut Ha Avodah.
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