Livni likely to quit politics
Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who has run with Likud, Kadima, Hatnua and the Zionist Union parties over the past 16 years, could be left without a party and end her political career this week, sources close to her told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Labor leader Avi Gabbay unceremoniously kicked Livni out of the Zionist Union alliance on live television on January 1. Since then, her Hatnua party has failed to attract a following.
No recent polls have predicted the party crossing the 3.25% electoral threshold. Polls broadcast on Channel 12 and KAN Sunday night predicted 1.1% and 0.5%, respectively, for the party.
“All our options are open, including dropping out if no significant mergers of lists are made this week,” Hatnua faction chairman Yoel Hasson told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. “If there are no mergers, we won’t throw votes from our political bloc in the garbage.”
Neither Labor, nor Yesh Atid, nor former IDF chief Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party have expressed interest in having Livni on their lists. There has been no significant progress toward forming a joint list of Israel Resilience and Yesh Atid ahead of Thursday’s deadline for lists to be submitted to the Central Elections Committee.
Yesh Atid was reportedly not even told in advance that Gantz was going to Munich to speak at the security conference on Sunday. Sources close to Gantz were quoted as saying that he had not been persuaded that a bond with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid would help defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The polls broadcast Sunday night found Gantz’s party to be in a free fall, losing four seats from 22 to 18 since January 30 in the Channel 12 poll, and three seats, from 23 to 20, in the KAN poll. Labor gained at Israel Resilience’s expense, rising to 10 seats in both polls.
When Channel 12 pollsters Mano Geva and Mina Tzemach asked who is most fit to be prime minister, 36% said Netanyahu and 31% said Gantz. The gap between the two was only 1% two weeks ago.
Yesh Atid, which has 11 seats in the outgoing Knesset, received 12 in the Channel 12 poll and 10 in the KAN poll. It remains to be seen whether Lapid’s party will receive a boost from Monday’s announcement of its list, like Likud and Labor received after their primaries.
MK Haim Jelin quit the party in anger on Thursday after it became apparent that he would not receive a realistic slot. MK Aliza Lavie is similarly weighing her options.
Sources in the party would not confirm reports that after running with Rabbi Shai Piron second on the list in 2013 and 2015, there would be no religiously observant candidates in the party’s top 10. The reports said the reason was that polling data showed that not enough Orthodox voters were going to be casting ballots for the party.
“You don’t have to be religious Zionist to serve the religious Zionist community,” said MK Elazar Stern, who is expected to be the highest ranked religiously observant candidate on the list.