President Ben-Zvi today invited Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion for a meeting tomorrow to entrust him with the task of forming a new Government to replace the one he toppled January 31.
At the same time it became known that the National Religious party, the key to Mr. Ben-Gurion’s strategy of forming a small coalition Government, postponed until tomorrow the decision on whether to accept Mr. Ben-Gurion’s bid. The groups within the Religious Bloc were reported split almost evenly on accepting the invitation and the party’s central committee will act at a meeting tomorrow.
The Religious Bloc reportedly was seeking to obtain a commitment from Mr. Ben-Gurion that the coalition would not be a mere stop-gap to enable his Mapai party to ease out of a difficult situation created by his fight against Pinhas Lavon, the ousted secretary-general of the Histadrut, but one which would last out the life of the present Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, which is some three years.
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