COUNTRY	State of Israel
ELECTION TYPE	Parliamentary
DATE	March 28, 2006

• 120 seats in the Knesset

• Chief of State: President Moshe KATZAV
• Head of Government: Prime Minister (Acting) Ehud OLMERT *
• Assembly: Israel has a unicameral Knesset with 120 seats.

* Ehud OLMERT became Acting Prime Minister after Prime Minister Ariel SHARON suffered a serious stroke in January 2006.

• The President is elected by the Knesset to serve a 7-year term.
• In the Knesset, 120 members are elected through a party-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms.
  

• Party: Kadima*
  Leader: Ehud OLMERT
  Seats won in last election: N/A
  
  
• Party: Likud
  Leader: Benjamin NETANYAHU
  Seats won in last election: 38
  
  
• Party: Labor-Meimad
  Leader: Amir PERETZ
  Seats won in last election: 19
  
  
• Party: Shinui
  Leader: Ron LEVINTAL
  Seats won in last election: 15
  
  
• Party: Meretz
  Leader: Yossi BEILIN
  Seats won in last election: 6
  
  
• Party: Shas
  Leader: Eliyahu YISHAI
  Seats won in last election: 11
  
  
• Party: Da-am - Workers' Party
  Leader: Asama AGVARIA
  Seats won in last election: N/A
  

• Party: United Arab List - Arab Renewal
  Leader: Ibrahim TZARTZUR
  Seats won in last election: 2
  
  
• Party: Torah Judaism
  Leader: Yakov LITZMAN
  Seats won in last election: 5
  
  
• Party: Hadash
  Leader: Mohammad BARAKE
  Seats won in last election: 3
  
  
• Party: National Democratic Assembly
  Leader: Azmi BISHARA
  Seats won in last election: 3
  

* Kadima Party was formed in November 2005.

• The last parliamentary election was held on January 28, 2003.

• Population: 6,276,883* (July 2005 est.)
• Number of registered voters: 5,014,622 (March 2006 est.)

* This figure includes about 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, about 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, more than 5,000 in the Gaza Strip, and fewer than 177,000 in East Jerusalem.

• The entire country is considered one electoral district. A threshold of 2% of total votes cast is required for any party to win a seat in the Knesset.
• The parliamentary poll was called 8 months earlier following the decision of Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, to leave his Likud party and form the more centrist Kadima party. The poll had been initially set for November 2006.
• Following the elections, the president will assign a prime minister from the new Knesset members and task him/her to form a government. Traditionally, the prime minister is the leader of the largest party. The direct election of the prime minister, instituted in Israel in 1996, was abolished in 2001.