1949 Israeli Constituent Assembly election

During the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948, Israel's national institutions were established, which ruled the new state. These bodies were not elected bodies in the pure sense, and their members originated from the management of the Jewish agency and from the management of the Jewish National Council.^{[citation needed]}

The Israeli Declaration of Independence stated that:

We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel".^[2]

However, the elections were not held before the designated date due to the ongoing war and were cancelled twice, while no constitution was ever adopted. The elections were eventually held on 25 January 1949.

These were the first nationwide elections held in Israel and required the creation of an electoral register. A population census was conducted on 8 November 1948, partly to establish the electoral register and issue residents with identification documents. A seven-hour curfew was imposed so that enumerators could record residents at their homes.^[3]

On 5 November 1948 the Provisional State Council determined that the Constituent Assembly would have 120 members. The election used nationwide proportional representation, based on the system previously used for elections to the Assembly of Representatives of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. No statutory electoral threshold applied, although the method used to allocate the 120 seats produced a natural threshold of approximately 0.83 per cent of the valid vote.^[4]

Approximately 1,000 polling stations were used.

A total of 21 parties registered to contest the elections.

On 19 May 1948, the Provisional Assembly confirmed Hebrew and Arabic as the official languages of Israel, removing English as an official language. The Constituent Assembly convened in February 1949.

During the Knesset term Eliezer Preminger left Maki and re-established the Hebrew Communists before joining Mapam, while Ari Jabotinsky and Hillel Kook, both associated with the Bergson Group in the United States, broke away from Herut; they were not recognised as a separate party by the speaker.

First government

Main article: First government of Israel

The first government was formed on 8 March 1949 with David Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister. His Mapai party formed a coalition with the United Religious Front, the Progressive Party, the Sephardim and Oriental Communities and the Democratic List of Nazareth, and there were 12 ministers. Yosef Sprinzak of Mapai was appointed as the speaker.

On 16 February 1949, the First Knesset elected Chaim Weizmann as the first (largely ceremonial) President of Israel. It also passed an educational law in 1949 which introduced compulsory schooling for all children between the ages of 5 and 14.^[5] On 5 July 1950, it passed the Law of Return.

The trend of political instability in Israel was started when Ben-Gurion resigned on 15 October 1950 over disagreements with the United Religious Front on education in the new immigrant camps and the religious education system, as well as demands that the Supply and Rationing Ministry be closed and a businessman appointed as Minister for Trade and Industry.

• List of members of the first Knesset