Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar is on course to be the largest party in the Knesset after next week’s Israeli elections, the JC’s analysis of the latest polls has found.
Based on the average outcomes of this week’s polling from each of Israel’s three major TV networks – Channels 11, 12 and 13 – Eisenkot has held his lead over incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days.
Yashar is now projected to win 22 Knesset seats in Tuesday’s election, with Netanyahu’s Likud expected to come second on 20,
The Beyachad alliance between former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid is set to come in distant third with 14 seats, with most of the other parties likely to pass the electoral threshold, including the major Charedi and Arab-Israeli parties, sitting between seven and ten.
However, while Likud has narrowed the gap to Yashar with a rally from a prediction of 17 seats last month, shifts among the smaller parties, including the withdrawal of former prime minister Benny Gantz and the resulting dispersal of his voter base, have seen Eisenkot’s change bloc widen its lead over Netanyahu’s prospective coalition.
The two blocs were neck and neck in September, with 53 and 52 projected seats respectively.
But the Netanyahu bloc, made up Likud, the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties, and the Charedim, has fallen away in recent weeks, dropping to 50, while Eisenkot’s predicted coalition of Yashar, Yisrael Beiteinu, the Democrats and Beyachad staying steady on 53.
Most of the votes lost appear to have filtered down to the unaligned parties (those which do not currently identify with either coalition) which include the Arab-Israeli Joint List and Ra’am factions and the centre-right Reservists.
These parties have seen their collective projections rise from 15 to 17 since last month, with some polls suggesting it could rise as high as 19.
With neither coalition likely to be able to form a majority on its own based on current projections, the unaligned parties could play a key role in forming the next government.
However, this presents problems for both leading candidates, both of whom have coalition allies who would refuse to serve with the Arab parties, which are expected to have enough seats to tip the balance for either side.
Within Netanyahu’s bloc, the participation of the Arab parties would likely be offset by the departure of Otzma and Religious Zionism and their 14 projected seats.
Likewise, for Eisenkot’s bloc, Yisrael Beiteinu’s Avigdor Liberman has said he would pull his party out of any coalition with the Arab parties, potentially costing the frontrunner eight seats and a key ally, and the unaligned Reservists have also ruled out joining a coalition involving them.
Based on the current predictions, Liberman’s withdrawal would leave Eisenkot two short of the 61 seats needed to form a majority government, even if he got all the Arab-Israeli MKs on board.
One solution which was floated in Israeli media this week would see Netanyahu and Eisenkot join forces to form a unity government, with both Liberman and Otzma’s Itamar Ben-Gvir accusing the leading candidates of plotting such a move.
However, Eisenkot has since ruled out any deal with Likud that would see Netanyahu serve as prime minister, even on a rotational basis, while key figures within his own coalition, including Liberman, Lapid, Bennett and the Democrats’ Yair Golan, while potentially open to a coalition with Likud, have ruled out working with Netanyahu personally.
As a result, the Knesset looks likely to be thrown into deadlock, with potentially weeks of political wrangling as both leading candidates attempt to negotiate the path to power without fracturing the support base that got them there.
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