If Shaked’s party were to join Netanyahu’s, it would bring the opposition leader’s bloc to a majority
Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s Zionist Spirit party is expected to pass the electoral threshold, but narrowly, winning only 3.5 percent of the vote, according to a recent poll.
The survey, published by Maariv on Friday, also revealed a slight shift of former Yamina voters to Shaked’s camp, to the detriment of the Religious Zionist Party.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s Liked Party was projected to earn 34 seats, Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid would get 23, the Blue and White: New Hope would earn 11, and nine for Religious Zionist.
Shas would get eight seats, United Torah Judaism would garner seven, the Arab Joint List would get six, the Labor Party and Yisrael Beytenu five, and four seats would be gained by Meretz, Zionist Spirit, and the Islamic Ra’am party.
According to the poll, the bloc supporting Lapid would earn 52 seats and the pro-Netanyahu camp would get 58 seats, but without the support of Zionist Spirit.
If Shaked – head of the right-wing Yamina alliance – decided to join Netanyahu’s bloc, it would bring it to a majority in Israel’s parliament and allow it to form a government.
The poll also found that smaller parties like Free Israel of Eli Avidar and the economic party of Professor Yaron Zelekha would earn 1.3 percent and 1.1 percent of the votes, which would be insufficient to seat members in parliament.