The Democratic Movement for Change (DMC) which has been divided by internal dissension since it entered Premier Menachem Begin’s Likud government a year ago made the division official early today and split into two separate groups. Neither of the groups will be allowed to use the name DMC. One group led by Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin will be called the Democratic Movement and will include seven or eight of the DMC’s 15 Knesset members.
The other group, headed by Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, which has long urged the DMC to pull out of the government, will be called Shinui, the name of the movement Rubinstein founded after the Yom Kippur War. It will have five MKs. Still unknown is what Transport Minister Meir Amit and the two or three DMC MKs who support him will do. It is possible he may form his own faction.
The final internal disintegration of the DMC began last week at the first meeting of the group’s 135-member governing council when Yadin’s proposal that the party should elect its institutions before it holds an ideological discussion was defeated by a 58-57 vote. The Rubinstein forces were supported by Amit in opposing Yadin.
However, Yadin still maintained that the council should meet tomorrow and elect the institutions without which he said the DMC could not function. Rubinstein said that by calling the meeting Yadin was acting in defiance of last week’s vote.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
This precipitated the final crisis which resulted in the two groups meeting in a marathon session throughout the night until early today in which the split was agreed upon. Yadin’s group was represented by Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir and Rubinstein’s by Dan Bibro, who was in constant telephone contact with Rubinstein.
The main problem was the distribution of the DMC’s money, offices and other possessions. Israeli parties receive most of their money from the government and since the DMC is the third largest party in the Knesset, the funds it has are large. It was finally agreed to divide everything proportionally according to the number of MKs each group has. This will hold true also if a third group develops, headed by Amit.
Meanwhile, the meeting Yadin had scheduled for tomorrow will now become the constituent meeting of the new Democratic Movement. Yadin’s group is also expected to stay in the government.
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