Likud rises to 36 seats as Netanyahu bloc nears majority

Yamina barely clearing electoral threshold in latest poll, with Yesh Atid falling to half the number of seats of the Likud.

By David Rosenberg, INN 

Opposition Leader and former premier Benjamin Netanyahu is on the cusp of having enough support for the Likud and its allies to form a new government if new elections were held today, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The poll, conducted by Direct Polls, found that if new elections were held today, the Likud would gain six additional seats, rising from 30 mandates won in last year’s election to 36 seats total, making it not only the largest party in the Knesset, but more than twice as largest as its nearest rival.

Yesh Atid, by contrast, would retain its 17 seats – marking a decline of two mandates since the previous Direct Polls survey was conducted in late November 2021.

Among the haredi factions, Shas held steady at nine seats, while United Torah Judaism retained its seven seats.

The Joint Arab List, which currently has six seats, gained one seat, rising to seven mandates, mirroring the results of November’s survey. The United Arab List, however, fell by one seat from November, down from six seats to five. The UAL won four seats in 2021, barely crossing the 3.25% electoral threshold.

On the Left, the Labor party is projected to retain its seven seats, with Meretz falling to five seats.

The Religious Zionist Party alliance with Otzma Yehudit and Noam continues to gain ground, rising from six seats in the 2021 election and seven seats in November’s poll to eight seats in Tuesday’s survey.

Yamina, by contrast, barely cleared the electoral threshold with four seats, down from the seven it won in 2021.

Yisrael Beytenu fell to six seats in the poll, while the New Hope faction again fell below the electoral threshold, receiving just 2.9% of the votes cast in the survey.

The Netanyahu bloc as a whole received a total of 60 seats, one shy of an outright majority, compared to 50 seats for the Left-Arab bloc, and 10 seats for right-of-center parties aligned with the coalition government.

The parties which make up the coalition fell from 61 seats currently to 53 in the poll.

February 16, 2022 | 3 Comments »

Leave a Reply

3 Comments / 3 Comments

  1. Prosecution: Irregularity found, but Netanyahu trial should continue
    State Attorney admits following investigation that irregularities found involving hacking into State Witness Shlomo Filber’s phone.
    Israel National News
    16.02.22 18:29

    The State Attorney’s Office on Wednesday night published the full findings of the investigation into the alleged hacking of phones in the Netanyahu cases.

    The office’s response indicates that an irregularity was found regarding hacking into the phone of State Witness Shlomo Filber. “In Filber’s case, the system was activated and extracted products for a little over a day. These products, the messages and records of calls received as a result of operating the system within this time frame, were examined by a Sigint producer from the research unit, who classified a few products as relevant.”

    “According to the investigation, in addition to extracting the products in accordance with the court order, the system performed certain actions, including copying the contact list and copying a number of additional items of information that were stored in Filber’s cell phone, which were not explicitly specified in the request for the court order.”

    The prosecution also wrote that “at the end of the investigation, all the products were classified by the investigating unit as irrelevant. The request to protect these orders and their products, at the stage of issuance of the immunity certificate, was approved after examination of the prosecution.”

    In the reply, it was argued that the irregularity in question had no effect on Netanyahu’s trial. “Contrary to what is alleged, in the case before us a technological system was used to a very limited extent for the purpose of implementing judicial orders for wiretapping of communication between computers. In fact, products were obtained through the system with respect to only one factor, for a very short period of time.”

    “The use of the software was made after the issuance of an order signed by the president of a district court. Although for the purposes of fulfilling the order extra details were collected, the products extracted through the activity carried out by the system were found to be irrelevant, no ‘investigation material’ was extracted from them, and in any event no use was made of the products within the framework of the investigation.”

    “In view of the findings of the police investigation, the prosecution’s position is that it is right and proper to continue hearing the evidence in the Thousands cases as usual, and there is no reason to postpone the continuation of the trial,” the prosecutor’s office ruled.