Israel Matzav

Maybe they ought to reconsider Bieberman

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

A poll that came out on Friday shows that the new 'Beiberman' merger (Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud with Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu) is equal to less than the sum of its parts. Maybe they should reconsider.

The united Likud-Yisrael Beytenu list will get 37 seats in the 19th Knesset, five fewer than the two parties currently have, a poll conducted by Smith Research for The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.

One week after the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu decided to merge their Knesset candidates lists, ahead of the January 22 election, many of their voters have moved to other parties. Four of their seats would go to Labor, which the poll says would grow from 13 seats in the present Knesset to a total of 22 in the next one.

The survey of 500 respondents, representing a statistical sample of the adult Israeli population, showed the migration of seats from Likud Beytenu to Labor brings the Right bloc to 64 seats, four fewer than in a Smith/Jerusalem Post poll from mid-October.

The new poll had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

The fifth seat the joint Likud-Yisrael Beytenu list would lose goes to Shas, which would get 12 seats if the election were held now.

Okay.... For those who are puzzled, please allow me to explain. Yisrael Beiteinu is to the Right on foreign policy and to the  Left on certain issues of domestic policy, most notably anything having to do with religion, since many of their voters are from the Former Soviet Union and have 'questionable' religious status. Many of those people would likely be uncomfortable with the Likud's foreign policy, which tends to be further to the Right (one of the motivations for Netanyahu doing the merger is to try to keep his party from drifting further Right).

Shas' gain is likely from the Likud itself, since the Likud has a substantial religious component that would not be comfortable voting for Lieberman.

According to The Jerusalem Post poll, the third-largest party in the 19th Knesset would be Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, with 13 seats. Kadima would drop from 28 MKs to three, and Meretz would grow from three to five.

In other words, many Kadima voters are fleeing from a sinking, unprincipled party to another unprincipled party.

United Torah Judaism would gain one seat, rising to six.

Now there's one I don't understand. They represent the fastest growing element of our population.

A joint national-religious list of National Union and Habayit Hayehudi would have nine MKs in the next Knesset, a gain of two.

If they can ever agree on one. Don't hold your breath.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Independence Party would not pass the 2% election threshold.

Look for Bibi to try to make him part of Likud and protect him with a high slot. 

More here.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Knesset elections 2013, Likud party, Yisrael Beiteinu

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:28 PM