A campaign pact among five Israeli opposition leaders leaves their four electoral lists nine seats short of a parliamentary majority in polling ahead of the Oct. 27 election.
The Middle East Forum’s polling average, updated Oct. 19, projects 52 seats for the cooperating lists, 54 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc and 14 for Arab-led parties. A majority requires 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The figures are estimates, as an earlier EconoTimes review of the election polling explained, rather than election results.
The five leaders who signed the Sept. 26 pact are former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Democrats leader Yair Golan. They agreed to stop attacking one another during the campaign and pledged to set up working groups for turnout and election preparations, government policy and media coordination. The pact did not settle who would head a future government.
The polling average gives Eisenkot’s Yashar 22 seats and Bennett and Lapid’s Beyachad list, called Together by the tracker, 12. Those projections do not determine who would become prime minister. Bennett’s Yamina won seven seats in 2021, and a coalition rotation agreement with Lapid made Bennett prime minister, according to the Israel Democracy Institute.
The projected 14 seats for Arab-led parties could matter in coalition talks, but the leaders differ over working with them. Eisenkot has ruled out Arab-led parties as coalition partners, while Lapid told The Associated Press he would not form another coalition with Ra’am. Golan supports including Arab-led parties, the AP reported.
Lieberman said he opposes any minority government, including a temporary one. He has also rejected governing with outside support from Arab-led parties. The leaders’ campaign agreement therefore leaves open how they would secure the 61 seats needed to govern.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee has scheduled voting for Oct. 27 and publication of official results for Nov. 4.
