Knesset Approves Government’s New Economic Policy by 59-41

The Knesset tonight approved the government’s new economic policy by a comfortable majority of 59-41 with two abstentions. The two were Labor maverick Arye Eliav and Likud co-chairman Elimelech Rimalt. Knesset sources said that several other liberal Likudists wanted to abstain because they basically support the government’s moves. But Likud permitted only one abstention–that of Rimalt.

The feeling in the Knesset is that a compromise is in the offing between the government and Histadrut. Following Premier Yitzhak Rabin’s appearance at the Histadrut Central Committee this morning, the understanding of political pundits was that despite the hard-line Histadrut resolutions, the unions will eventually agree to forego part of the cost-of-living allowances, at least for higher paid workers. (See separate story.)

The government for its part is expected to agree to increase the compensation paid to poorer workers, and perhaps too to pay larger COL increments than was at first intended but in the form of government bonds rather than in cash. Earlier, the Knesset voted down a Likud nonconfidence motion submitted because the government had refused to hand over to a Knesset committee responsibility for inquiring into the Israel Corporation affair. The government insists that the State Comptroller investigate the affair and rejects Likud’s idea for a parliamentary inquiry. Likud speakers suggested that if so much money had not been lost in scandals like the Israel Corporation affair the economy would not have reached its present state.