The Mapam party decided by a narrow 17 vote margin last night to remain part of the Labor Alignment. The nearly 1,000 delegates to the party’s ninth convention were split evenly on the issue. The vote was 515-498 in favor of continuing the alliance with the Labor Party, A Labor Party spokesman welcomed the decision, saying it ensured a united campaign to oust Likud from power in the next Knesset elections. But Labor dove Yossi Sarid said he regretted it. He believed separate lists in the next elections would have revitalized both parties and offered a better Labor alternative to the present government.
Some veteran Mapam leaders agreed with Sarid, among them Victor Shemtov, Chaika Grossman, Gad Yativ and Binyamin Yasur. Shemtov, Mapam’s Secretary General who had campaigned hard for a separate list to offer “fresh ideological thinking to attract new voters,” said he would no longer serve as faction chairman.
Mapam, which is generally well to the left of Labor on many issues has long complained that its views were neglected by the much larger Labor Party. The question at hand however was whether the objective to unseat Likud would be better served by a single list of Alignment candidates or separate Labor Party and Mapam lists in the next elections. A single list was favored by such Mapam veterans as Meir Ya’ari and Yaacov Hazan and their view prevailed, but only barely.
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