The party lists for Israel’s fifth election have been officially closed. In the end, despite much talk, Labor and Meretz did not link up, and each will run separately, but the big drama was in the Joint Arab List. Balad announced that it would split off from the list and run independently, leaving Hadash and Ta’al the only components of the Joint List. According to the weekend polls, Balad will not pass the minimum vote threshold.
The average of the five most recently published polls shows the number of Knesset seats for each of the parties as follows:
Likud 32
Yesh Atid 24
Hamahaneh Hamamlachti 12
Religious Zionism 12
Shas 8
United Torah Judaism 7
Labor 6
Yisrael Beitenu 5
Meretz 5
Ra’am 4
Hadash-Ta’al 4
Balad and Ayelet Shaked’s Habayit Hayehudi party are both currently below the minimum vote threshold.
According to the average of the last five polls, which include polls published in Ma’ariv and Yisrael Hayom at the beginning of last week before the break-up of the Joint Arab List, the Likud-led block is projected to win 59 Knesset seats, while the block opposed to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has 56 seats. In other words, neither block reaches the 61 seats required to form a governing coalition. The split in the Joint Arab List could, however, tip the balance in favor of the Likud and Netanyahu.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 18, 2022.
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