Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has gained 13 points in popularity since the Nov. 1 Knesset elections, while his political foe, Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, suffered an 11.6 percent decline, according to an opinion poll published in Ha’aretz Monday.
It was conducted by the Pori Research Institute among 1,200 Israelis, who were asked to rate the various government ministers on job performance.
Peres, who became finance minister in the new Likud-Labor coalition government, dropped from a 33.9 percent approval rating before the elections to 22.3 percent now.
A foreign minister in the last government, Peres is the only minister in the present government to show a decline.
Shamir, who succeeded himself as prime minister last November, rose in approval from 27.8 percent to 40 percent.
But the most popular member of the government is Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a hardline Laborite whose favorable job rating went from 46.2 percent to 55 percent. Rabin was defense minister in the previous government.
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