According to a recent mandate poll conducted at the halfway mark of the Knesset’s current term, the Center-left bloc made up of Yesh Atid and the Zionist Union parties is gaining strength, while the Likud is losing mandates. The poll which was carried out for Israel news agencies and published on Wednesday evening on channel 2, shows that if elections were held now, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would have a very difficult time forming a cohesive government.
The poll put the Likud party in the lead in terms of mandates won with 24. However, closely behind them were the Zionist Union party led by newly appointed Avi Gabbai, with 21 mandates and Yesh Atid with 20. Together, they would account for 41 mandates, that with the Unified Arab party gaining 12 mandates and Meretz garnering 5, would put the center-left bloc at 58 out of 120 mandates, enough to make the Prime Minister’s job quite difficult.
Other big changes showed the Jewish Home party garnering 12 seats as opposed to its current eight, and the Kulan party falling from 10 mandates to eight and United Torah Judaism obtaining eight mandates as opposed to its current six. and the Shas party, a mainstay of Israeli politics since the 80’s would only obtain four seats putting it at risk of not passing the electoral threshold. Rounding out the group is Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party that according to the poll would gain five mandates, no large change from where it is today.
The right-wing bloc would, therefore, obtain 62 mandates, allowing it to form a government, but it would be a shaky government at best.
Also asked during the poll was whether or not Prime Minister Netanyahu should continue for another term. The majority of Israelis answered this in the negative with 52% saying that he should call it quits after this term. 38% however, said that he should continue for at least one more term.
The poll was conducted over the past few weeks and a has 4.4% margin of error.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
1. Israeli polls have always been seriously wrong (in part since they taking American statistical methodology and apply it to a country with a totally different political structure and social system). Furthermore, Israeli polls have consistently overestimated the “left” and underrepresented Sefardim (i.e. Afro-Asian Jews, non-Ashkenazim) as well as religious Jews (so consistently as to suggest a flawed paradigm in developing samples).
2. Based on these polls, Likud is the only party likely to form a government, and at worst will need to include a center/left party in the government. It will far easier for Likud to deal with Lapid or the nominal socialists, than for those parties to recruit a right-wing or religious party. And this is before considering that Likud is probably in a better position than the polls suggest (based on the historical left-wing bias in polling).
Without a large Shas, neither the left nor the right will have much of a chance of forming a stable coalition based on their core parties + the charedi parties (the left will almost certainly not form a coalition with the Arabs). Which indicates that, should current trends hold, the core of the next coalition will likely be Likud+Lapid+Kulanu+any additional centrist party that may run and get into the Knesset.