Elbow room is in short supply ahead of Israel’s election on April 9, with the field looking increasingly crowded.

Barely a day has passed since the date was announced last week without a new party being founded or an existing one splitting in two.

Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz is one of those expected to play a part in coalition-building calculations after the election.

His new party, Israel Resilience, is doing well in the polls — as is Gesher (Bridge), founded by Orly Levy-Abekasis, who was originally elected to the Knesset as a member of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu but left two years ago.

Besides having name recognition, both leaders have been sufficiently vague with their policies to draw in supporters from a wide range of political positions.

New Year’s Day brought the abrupt end of the Zionist Union electoral alliance. Labour Party leader Avi Gabbay announced at a press conference that he was ending the partnership with Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister, and her Hatnuah (The Movement) party.

Ms Livni, who was sitting next to Mr Gabbay, had not been told in advance of the news. Her face, as Mr Gabbay announced the political divorce, was thunderous.

Relations between the two have been rocky since Mr Gabbay’s election as Labour leader two years ago and Zionist Union — which ran a close race in 2015, coming second with 24 seats — has plummeted to single-digit support in the polls.

Now Hatnuah and Ms Livni have to decide whether if they run alone they have a viable chance of winning any seats.

Three days earlier, the national-religious Jewish Home split when two of its leaders, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, departed to form The New Right, which will be open to religious and secular members.

The remaining Jewish Home MKs now face both a leadership primary and the dilemma of whether to link up with controversial far-right groups to try and attract more voters.

With Likud well ahead in the polls with around thirty projected seats, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to responding to any new centrist party or split among his challengers with the same refrain: “I don’t interfere in the division of seats on the left.”

He is reprising his strategy from the 2015 election of trying to taint any challengers as serving the “weak and treacherous” left.

But his biggest worry is the threat of an announcement by the attorney-general, before election day, of his intention to indict the prime minister on corruption charges.

Such an announcement would overshadow the campaign and make the race a referendum on his own suitability to remain in office.

In every election there are parties that have little chance of getting into the Knesset but help spice up the campaign.

One of these this time is formed by Eldad Yaniv, a former political strategist turned professional protestor against corruption, who failed in the 2013 election with New Country party.

In 2015, he ran in the Labour primaries but failed to secure a high enough spot on the list.

This year he’s back with another independent party, hoping to capitalise on the wave of protests against Mr Netanyahu.

Over the next month and a half, the parties will select their lists of candidates. A small minority — including Likud, Labour and Meretz — will hold party-wide primaries.

In most of the others, candidates will be chosen and accorded positions on the list by the party leader or a small committee.

In United Torah Judaism and Shas, the Strictly Orthodox parties, rabbinical councils will decide the candidates.

Once the parties have finalised their lists, there will be a short period before the middle of next month, when they have to present those lists to the central election commission.

This will be a decisive moment for the party leaders, especially of those who are at risk of not crossing the election threshold of 3.25 per cent.

The implications of a party failing to enter the next Knesset will impact not only on its members, but also on the viability of forming coalitions.

In the 1992 election, more Israelis voted for right-wing and religious parties but since some of them failed to cross the threshold, Labour’s Yitzhak Rabin formed a centre-left coalition.

With so many parties running, it is inevitable that some will not make the cut and hundreds of thousands of votes will be wasted.

The last-minute decisions of party leaders to join forces and maximise the power of the different blocs could determine who wins this election.