PM’s Likud projected to win 30-32 seats, and to clinch 60 along with declared and potential partners; 51% don’t want him as PM, but he’s still far more popular than his challengers
19 March 2021,
A man walks near an election campaign poster showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on March 18, 2021 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Final polls aired by Channel 12 and Channel 13 Friday ahead of Tuesday’s national election showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the cusp of clinching a ruling majority as the race draws to a close, though he is still not guaranteed one.
Channel 12’s survey showed Netanyahu’s Likud gaining momentum, with the party having gained three seats in the past week. And while a majority of respondents, 51 percent, do not want him to continue as prime minister, he is far more popular than any other single candidate.
Both polls showed Likud and its religious allies at 60 seats, one seat short of a bare minimum majority in the 120-member Knesset. Potential support from the rogue Arab party Ra’am could take the premier over the top, but such an alliance is strongly opposed by the hard right.
Channel 12 showed Likud with 32 seats, its highest result in months; opposition leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid with 18; Naftali Bennett’s Yamina with 9; Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope with 9; the Joint List of majority Arab parties has 8; ultra-Orthodox Shas has 8; United Torah Judaism with 7; Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu with 7; and Labor at 6.
Four parties were hovering just above the 3.25% electoral threshold: Blue and White, Religious Zionism, Meretz and Ra’am, which broke away from the Joint List, all had 4 seats.
One or more of those parties dropping below the threshold could cause potentially dramatic changes in the overall distribution of seats and help one side or another build a coalition.
In total, Netanyahu and his declared allies in Shas, UTJ and Religious Zionism had 51 seats. Yamina, which has not ruled out joining a Netanyahu-led coalition, would add nine to reach 60.
Meanwhile, the bloc of parties that have ruled out joining a Netanyahu-led government had 56 seats. Ra’am has not committed one way or another.
On Channel 13 the seat distributions were: Likud 30; Yesh Atid 18; Yamina 10; New Hope 10; Joint List 8; Shas 8; UTJ 7; Yisrael Beytenu 6; Labor 6; Religious Zionism 5; Meretz 4; Blue and White 4; and Ra’am 4.
Netanyahu and his allies had 50, with Yamina potentially taking that up to 60. The anti-Netanyahu bloc once again had 56, with Ra’am supposedly neutral.
Channel 12 noted the dramatic fall in the past three months of both Yamina and New Hope in polling, with both having polled at some 20 seats at some points during the race, and now halving their power in the most recent projections.
Asked who they preferred as prime minister, 36% said Netanyahu, 23% said Lapid, 12% said Sa’ar and 7% said Bennett.
Asked if they wanted Netanyahu to continue as prime minister, 51% said no, 36% said yes and 13% said they don’t know.
8% said no coalition will be formed and a fifth election will be called, 11% said Netanyahu’s opponents would form a coalition, and 11% did not know.
While horse-race polls are an almost daily occurrence in Israel in the weeks leading up to elections and are not seen as overly reliable, taken together, the surveys can often serve as a general gauge of the political climate and where the vote may be headed.
The upcoming elections — the fourth in two years — were called after the power-sharing government of Likud and Blue and White failed to agree on a budget by a December 23 deadline.
The election, like the previous three votes, is largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s rule amid his ongoing trial on corruption charges, as well as his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
@ Edgar G.:
– Haaretz. Uh. Oh. Where have we heard this before? Or am I just being paranoid?
@ Edgar G.:
Divide and conquer, apparently. “Bennett signs pledge not to join government with Lapid as prime minister” https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-signs-pledge-not-to-join-government-with-yair-lapid-as-prime-minister/
Israel Elections: Gideon Sa’ar slams Naftali Bennett’s anti-Yair Lapid vow
Lapid also said he was not concerned about Bennett’s letter.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-elections/saar-slams-bennett-anti-lapid-vow-662771
In final stretch, Netanyahu plans to siphon votes from Bennett to Smotrich
March 21
https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/03/21/in-final-stretch-netanyahu-plans-to-siphon-votes-from-bennett-to-smotrich/
Edgar G. Said:
Yes, I’m sure that helped him and now his pronouncement that he will make Israel a world superpower though Bennett also got a big boost from his efficient handling of Covid issues as health minister.
@ Edgar G.:
Yes, Smotrich is good, too. And as has been pointed out, a strong right wing coalition could pull Netanyahu to the right on domestic issues but I think we are in agreement that none of these others have either the votes or the skills to do anything but fragment the coalition and strengthen the left if they go their own way.
@ Edgar G.:
Or “Sometimes a Sars is just a Sars.”
@ Edgar G.:
Ha Ha. Or perhaps, “It takes one to know one.”
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Lapid has been a carbuncle on the rear-end for Israeli politics ever since he had visions of grandeur. He’s against everything. …If his party didn’t exist, LIKUD would have a very strong majority. He will never be PM, it would be a disaster. He’s just a cunning opportunist.
That Sa’ar is not ruling out allying with Lapid, shows his ineptness as a politician, Keeping his 11,10, 9. 8 seats “dangling” in front of …whom??
THREE days before the election, his positions should be FIRMED and well publicised. Those who wouldn’t like him to ally with Lapid, might hesitate to vote for him, and those who would like the alliance, could be uncertain of his intentions, and not sure their vote shouldn’t go to another party. Maybe that’s the cause of his ongoing descent in the polls….?
Yes; he could call it “The Hydroxychloroquine Party”, and his slogan could be …..”take a fizzy dose of Sa’ar every morning and wake up to a new future”…….HQP for short. (I’m brilliant)…..!!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
That’s a thought. But likely Trump might have really spent money on flooding the country wirh “Real Deal” videos. It seems the only way. And really, the other candidates werennot all that great, although several, like Cruz had good public recognition.
But when urged to run years ago Trump refused, said he wasn’t ready, and that when he ran he would only do so if he was rURE he would win.
So he saw something that nobody else did.
But, yes, it IS a thought.
@ Edgar G.:
Hasn’t Lapid been the biggest obstacle to judicial reform, settlement and sovereignty?
@ Edgar G.:
Well, Saa’rs supports settlement and sovereignty, I understand, so I don’t feel like slamming him, don’t know what his experience or record is like actually doing anything as a minister or anything else, but seriously, how can anyone with that name expect to get anywhere now. Maybe he should just change it to something less inflammatory (har, har) like Covid.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Well,,, they do have internal elections from time to me, and the PM is never seriously challenged, the closest being Sa’ar….and he’s turned out to being a blown gasket. He left LIKUD in pique to start a new party and after ridiculous sympathy success, is plunging to his natural place in the polls, and may yet go lower. I prefer Bennett’s talents to Sa’ars (don’t know what THEY are) and I really like Smotrich’s devotion to both Religious Zionism and the Right Wing. As for his talents as a statesman, he likely doesn’t have them , but makes a very good Mininster, I’d say in any position. His honesty shines through, unmarred by the cess pit of politics. Very unusual, and praiseworthy.
There is No One in Israel today, or for the near future, who could do what Netanyahu has done for Isrel. Even with the Sovereignty sore spot, the IDF controls the whole of Israel and always has. The less they mix into strictly Arab affairs the better. Let them murder one another. As we see, assassinations against Jews are almost a non news item today, so occasional has it become.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Perhaps the Pfizer report on Netanyahu’s obsessive communications about getting the Vaccine toi t’s best possble level of quality and distribution wll do it. The Pfizer CEO revealed that the PM was phoning him at all hours even at 3 a.m a total of 30 calls.
Even though Netanyahu likely arranged it with Pfizer CEO to give him a boost. Singling out Israel from thr whole world as the best example of duty and resonsibility is a HUGE plus.
THere is no viable alternative anyway. But the Israel public is still mashugga, and preoccupied with everything except just how much the PM has done to project Israel near the top of the International scene. -so who knows…??
@ Sebastien Zorn:
But, would Bibi be the candidate if Likud had a ranked choice system internally? And if not, would they be able to win the general election? I don’t think anyone but Trump could have won against Hillary Clinton in 2016, even if Huckabee was better on the settlement and sovereignty.
@ Edgar G.:
I think the only way of breaking the stalemate is for Netanyahu to pull a diplomat rabbit out of the hat in the eleventh hour that boosts his popularity just enough to put him securely over the top. He’s within one point. Nobody else has a chance.
@ Edgar G.:
In NYC, the Democratic primary is the election. The general election is a formality.
@ Edgar G.:
But, whether in a parliamentary or in a two party system, it is intended to eliminate the situation where leading candidates can say that those in their larger ideological camp are throwing away their votes if they don’t vote for them, on the one hand, while avoiding the fragmentation, balkanization and confusion effect of too many candidates, on the other, I wonder what will happen in practice. New York has a one party system, with other parties having a symbolic value as protest votes. Republicans rarely get elected mayor. Otherwise, there are only a couple of city council positions in Staten Island and Queens and no primaries, most of the time.
@ Edgar G.:
But, I wonder if Trump would have won the Republican primary in 2016, if a ranked choice system had been in effect. It certainly would have necessitated a different strategy on his part. He defeated 17 candidates in a primary in which different states had their primaries at different times and people kept dropping out over the course of the whole year. New York had the very last primary in the country; only Trump and Cruz were on the ballot, by that time. If ranked choice system had been in effect, when candidates dropped out, their votes would go to the next ranked candidate on each voter’s ballot.
@ Edgar G.:
New York City had proportional representation during WWII and so had two Communist City Councilmen. Under proportional representation, you have party slates and each party gets as many candidates in as the proportion of the vote they get. Both you and the website I cited are using alternative definitions than the one I have always known. This system of ranked choice is one where people run as individuals not as representatives of parties and only 0ne can win at the end. It’s winner take all but people vote for several people in order of preference, and as soon as somebody gets more than 50 percent they win. It would never pass in Israel, because Likud would win every election, since it basically means whoever wins a plurality wins the whole ball of wax, no compromise, no coalitions.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I think it’s very similar to what I posted. One thing I forgot is that only two seats are llocated to each district or county. There seem to be minor differences only, and it seems to be a very good system. In Israel they “call” it proportional but it really isn’t. Nothing like what I just described.
At the same time, to be accurate, I believe here are several different voting systems of Proportionl Representation. I once read about them and several, although called Proportional R. bore no resemblance to some of the others.
I think Israel has what they called “Party List P Rep”. Look at all the votes wasted by unsuccessful parties, unless they CHOSE to allot them to another party. But in Israel I don’t know if a completely failed party can allot their unused votes. In fact it’s a bit of a mystery to me, except for the haggling and bargaining that would drive any sanity from a decent person.
@ Edgar G.:
I think it might be different. It’s compared here:
I think Israel and all parliamentary systems have proportional, unless I am mistaken.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/alternative-voting-systems.aspx
@ Sebastien Zorn:
This sounds similar to that which they use in Ireland. Proportional Representation, in which every vote is counted.
,
Each party has candidates in every county or area of a county or city (depending on population) as they choose. The larger parties field candidates in every area, Can enter 2 candidates. The voters make their choices A,B,C, D, etc depending on how many candidates. Therefore any surplus from a winning candidate goes to the next choice, even if of a different party. Also if a candidate does not get enough to win the seat, his votes go to the next choice.
So every vote counts.
@ Edgar G.:
New York City is about to experiment with Ranked Choice Voting. https://vote.nyc/page/ranked-choice-voting
@ Bear Klein:
The latest I heard about Gafni is that he’s in hospital with another heart attack, or is just recovering from one. He intimates that he may shortly leave politics. He’s only 68, already a heart attack veteran.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Lowering the threshold to its previous limit would cause tiny parties to proliferate, and make knitting together a coalition almost impossible because of their diverse demands. Yes, the 3.25% minimum was supposed to fix that, and what it did was eliminate the tiny splinter parties, but they just got togethser and made larger ones. The same problem exists. As Bear says, the whole election system is completely dysfunctional and needs to be abolished completely. We and many others have been saying this for the past 50 years. There are systems in other countries which would work well in Israel.
The problem, apart from the system, is the Israeli character, which is only one step removed from a “shuk-haggling-syndrome”….like Arabs in fact….And, added to that, they don’t behave like “politicians”, but like mortal enemies -ready to resort to knives. And completely ethics-free.
It’s like a rugby scrum. And stooopid. Look at the way Bennett has been focussing on attacking Netanyahu, Bennett with 10 possible seats, claiming to be the presumptive PM. He sounds demented on this subject. He should be supporting Netanyahu for the country’s sake and leave personal hatred aside. He uses the PMs corruption charges etc as part reasons, even though the whole country, ever since that criminal Mandelblit produced them, had deemed that they are fake charges, and not in any lexicon. All around the world, learned scholars have said the same, some in very strong language.. .
This might show others that a Right Wing Govt. is imevitable and cause them to jump on the bus.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Trouble is more than that. The electoral system is dysfunctional. It needs a major constitutional fix. Starting with a constitution and not just Basic Laws which can be overturned by a majority of the Knesset.
If it remains stalemated, wouldn’t going back to the days before the threshold be the simplest answer? Hasn’t the threshold been causing a problem it was put in place to fix?
Full article at: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/gafni-if-bibi-doesnt-get-61-well-consider-other-options-662630