A vote of confidence in Premier David Ben Gurion’s new coalition Cabinet is not expected to be forthcoming in the Parliament until tomorrow, following a foreign policy statement by Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, it was learned here today.
The left-wing Socialist Mapam Party requested that Mr. Sharett’s report be separated from the general debate, but this is considered impossible because the Foreign Minister is scheduled to return to Lake Success tomorrow night.
The Parliamentary debate on the composition of the new Cabinet is not expected to last more than eight hours, but the vote of confidence will not be taken until after the Premier’s summation address and Mr. Sharett’s statement. Last night, Premier Ben Gurion reviewed the situation in a lengthy address before the Parliament, during which a storm broke out when a Mapam deputy interrupted him to ask whether President Weizmann had been informed of the composition of the new Cabinet.
Today the same Mapam deputy apologized for his outburst. He explained that he had lost control of himself because of “Ben Gurion’s unparliamentary attitude” toward the President to whom he conveyed the information of the establishment of the new Cabinet over the telephone instead of calling upon him personally.
In reporting last night on the composition of the Cabinet, Premier Ben Gurion emphasized that the new government will carry out the program adopted by the Parliament last year, including reforms in the field of economic development which provide for greater concessions to private investors. The Minister of Trade and Industry in the new Cabinet is Yakov Geri, the politically independent industrialist from South Africa who until his entering the Cabinet yesterday was known as Jack Gering.
The new 13-man Cabinet is composed of seven members of the Mapai, three members of the Religious Bloc, one member of the Progressive Party, one member of the Sephardim and one non-partisan. The ministers and their portfolios are: Prime Minister and Defense, Mr. Ben Gurion, Mapai; Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sharett, Mapai; Finance, Eliezer Kaplan, Mapai; Education, David Remez, Mapai; Labor and Social Insurance, Golda Myerson, Mapai; Communications, Dr. Bernard Joseph, Mapai; Agriculture, Pinhas Iubianiker, Mapai; Interior Health and Immigration, Moshe Shapiro, Religious Bloc; Religious Affairs and War Sufferers, Rabbi Judab Maimon, Religious Bloc; Social Welfare, Rabbi Itzhak Meir Levin, Religious Bloc; Justice, Pinhas Rosen, Progressive; Police Affairs, Behor Shitreet, Sephardim; Trade and Industry, Yakov Geri, non-political.
The only member of the old Cabinet who does not appear on the new body is former Education Minister Zalman Shazar, who is reported to be the next Minister or Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Mr. Lubianiker, who is taking over the Agriculture portfolio may be succeeded in his post of secretary-general of the Histadrut by Mordecai Namir, presently the Minister to Moscow. Mr. Namir has resigned that post effective next month.
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