Labor to support bill dispersing Knesset

Coalition party to enforce discipline requiring every Labor MK to vote in favor of MK Silvan Shalom's bill.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
silvan shalom 248 88 aj (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
silvan shalom 248 88 aj
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
The Labor faction decided on Monday afternoon to vote in favor of Likud MK Silvan Shalom's bill to disperse the Knesset and set a November election date when the bill comes to a vote in a preliminary reading on Wednesday. The faction decided by a significant margin to enforce faction discipline requiring every Labor MK to vote in favor of the bill. But MK Yoram Marciano, who was heard repeatedly screaming from behind closed doors, said after the meeting that he intended to vote against the bill because Labor chairman Ehud Barak refused his request to hold a vote in the faction by secret ballot. Marciano said that he was representing the interests of Labor members, who in a recent poll were overwhelmingly against leaving the government. A Ma'agar Mohot poll broadcast last Thursday on Israel Radio found that whilst the public wants to see the Knesset vote to disperse itself and set a date for elections, Labor voters do not. The poll found that among the general public, 67 percent support dispersing the Knesset and only 17% oppose it. Among Labor Party members, only 7% believe the Knesset should vote on dispersing itself before Olmert's lawyers are allowed to cross-examine the key witness in the most recent corruption investigation against him, New York Jewish financier Morris Talansky. Some 29% would support dissolving the Knesset after that happens, while 36% oppose dispersing the Knesset in any case.