The High Court of Justice is expected to overturn the decision and allow the Joint Arab List and Ra’am to participate in the October 27 elections.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee has disqualified the two Arab parties - Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am and the Joint Arab List (Hadash, Balad and Ta’al) from running in the elections for the 26th Knesset. The Committee also specifically disqualified candidates on these lists from running for Knesset - MK Ofer Cassif from Hadash, and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh. The latter with the specific backing of Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg.
However, the High Court of Justice can be expected to overturn the decision and allow Ra’am and the Joint Arab List to contest the October 27 elections, when it rules next week on petitions against the disqualifications.
Uria Bar-Meir writes that Dr. Ofir Haddad and Dr. Amir Fuchs of the Israel Democracy Institute argues that Israel’s disqualification mechanism is problematic. It restricts the right to run for office, and Israel is the only country in the world where this mechanism is administered by a party-based body -such as the Central Elections Committee - rather than by a professional electoral commission (as in South Africa) or a constitutional court (as in Germany).
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 24, 2026.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.
Knesset elections credit: Shutterstock
Globes Whistleblower team