THE ISRAELI ELECTION CANDIDATES
▶ THE THIRD election to be held in Israel in less than a year has led to another realignment of the country’s political kaleidoscope.
In an effort to maximise their attractiveness to voters and produce a result that differs from the two elections of 2019, smaller parties on both the left and the right of the spectrum have combined their movements.
On the left, Labour and Gesher are now running a joint list with Meretz, while parties on the right flirted with — but ultimately rejected — a deal with the extremist Jewish Power party.
But despite the mergers, there is precious little evidence that the March 2 election will produce a result that is sufficiently different from the previous rounds and can finally result in a stable coalition government.
It seems clear that, as it was in April and September 2019, this election will again be all about Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israelis will be asked to answer the question of which bloc they prefer. On the one hand, they have the side led by the Likud leader, who late last year was finally indicted on charges of fraud and corruption. The only alternative prime minister is Benny Gantz, who has only been in politics for 14 months.
THE JOINT LIST * Poll projection: 13 seats
▶ Representing political views across the spectrum from socialism to Islamism, the four main Arab parties are again fielding a joint list of candidates to help win as many seats as they can under Israel’s proportional electoral system. But the parties do disagree: after the last election, Balad refused join the other three in endorsing Benny Gantz for prime minister. Ayman Odeh (above) of Hadash leads the alliance. * Combines: Balad, Hadash, Ta’al, United Arab List
LABOUR — MERETZ * Poll projection: 9 seats
▶ Labour, the party that founded Israel, recorded the worst results of its history in the two elections of 2019, forcing its reluctant leader Amir Peretz (right) to bow to the inevitable and forge an alliance with the leftwing Meretz under Nitzan Horowitz (left). The new partnership does not extend to smaller left-wing parties like Stav Shaffir’s Greens, but former nationalist Orly Levi-Abekasis’s Gesher is still included. * Combines: Labour, Meretz, Gesher
BLUE & WHITE * Poll projection: 34 seats
▶ There is no disputing Blue & White’s success: founded in February 2019, it has not celebrated its first birthday yet, but it in both elections in 2019 it won roughly as many votes as Likud and Benny Gantz (left) — who is in alliance with two other former IDF generals, Moshe Yaalon and Gabi Ashkenazi, and the centrist Yesh Atid party of Yair Lapid
(right) — is the only credible alternative to become prime minister. * Combines: Yesh Atid, Telem, Israel Resilience
YISRAEL BEITEINU
Poll projection: 7 seats
▶ If there is one reason why Benjamin Netanyahu was not comfortably returned last year at the head of a fresh coalition, it is Avigdor Lieberman (above). He refused to join a Likud-led coalition after refusing to water down his plan for more Strictly Orthodox draftees in the IDF — and it played down well his voters, many of whom are secular-minded migrants from the former Soviet Union whose children have served. He pushed for a unity government after the September election.
LIKUD
Poll projection: 31 seats
▶ Likud remains the modern mainstay of Israeli politics, a party that reflects the sympathies if not necessarily the votes of most conservatives. In the past year, party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has increasingly pandered to the fringes of Israel’s right wing in an effort to cement his power bloc and lengthen an unbroken decade in power. But the tactic failed to generate a breakthrough in either of 2019’s elections and there is little so far to suggest it will succeed in 2020 either.
THE NEW RIGHT *
Poll projection: 11 seats
▶ Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked (left and right respectively) surprised many observers when they announced a tieup with Bezalel Smotrich’s hardright National Union in what they called a “great unification of the ideological right and religious-Zionism”. After a brief hesitation and an abortive alliance with the extremist Jewish Power movement, Rafi Peretz and his Jewish Home party signed as well.
* Combines: The New Right, National Union, Jewish Home
SHAS
Poll projection: 8 seats
▶ This Strictly Orthodox party is very close to Benjamin Netanyahu: before the 2019 elections, the prime minister’s portrait appeared alongside that of leader Aryeh Deri
(above) across Charedi neighbourhoods. But it has not always been so — Shas has sat with in government with Labour in the past.
UNITED TORAH JUDAISM *
Poll projection: 7 seats
▶ There was little talk this time of a UTJ alliance with Shas, unlike previous elections. It means recentlypromoted Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (above) will lead UTJ’s two factions into this election once again.
* Combines: Agudat Yisrael, Degel HaTorah