Israel’s Knesset, the Parliament, will elect the nation’s third President tomorrow, giving the highest office in the land to 73 -year-old Zalman Shazar, scholar, writer, veteran labor leader and close personal friend, since he was 16, of the late Izhak Ben-Zvi, his predecessor in the Presidency.
Under the law, the Knesset must elect a President within 30 days of the demise of the former holder of the office. Mr. Ben-Zvi died April 23. Knesset Speaker Kadish Luz has been the Acting President under Israel’s law of succession.
The Liberal party has nominated one of its co-presidents, Peretz Bernstein, for the Presidency. However, that nomination was intended only to demonstrate the party’s feeling that the highest office is not necessarily a “monopoly” of the dominant Mapai party. Mr. Ben-Zvi had been a member of Mapai.
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