Israeli General Election (2nd of March, 2020): Madness

[danny]

Very interesting, because I had a look at this poll and it puts the Jewish Home at 2% and Otzma at 1%, meaning that they'd still fail to win 4 seats if they ever united.

The Jewish Home haven't polled above the threshold since 5th December, and before that it was one poll on 25th November. If this is accurate it'd be the first time the National Religious have had no political representation in Israel's history, right?

The constituent parts of the (former) URP have yet to agree to in what shape and they will run in the elections. until they get it all sorted out I would expect their numbers in the polls to be depressed, since it isn't clear what you would be voting for. If they end up running with something resembling their list from April, I expect the results to be similar.

[danny]

I find it hard to believe that Shaffir would run on her own, it sounds like grandstanding to create leverage to me.

[danny]

since people were speculating here about Shaked, she will officially run with Bennet in the New Right.

[danny]

Otzma and JH have agreed to run together, so we are getting a replay of the April election on the right (except this time Zehut isn't running).

Otzma get spots 3,6,9 which is what they demanded last time but were refused by JH.
National Union technically haven't agreed to join yet, but I don't see any other options for them.

[danny]

Seems to be an outlier since they’ve been consistently polling at 5 seats. Likud win 34 seats in that poll which obviously ain’t gonna happen.

Then again you’re overestimating the influence of the National Religious/“settler” right. In September the Kahanists missed the mark by a long shot, NR and BY had to join forces in order to survive and they still underperformed. This will definitely backfire

The same URP got 5 seats in April, I don't see why that would change much this time. New Right's support is softer so there is always a chance that they fail, but in April they barely missed by under 2K votes with the somewhat similar Zehut getting 118K votes. I think they are favoured to make it in.

Likud at 34 would be higher than my prediction right now, but I don't see why it's obvious not to happen, especially if a party or two barely miss the threshold.

[danny]

Does this not mean they will be above the threshold for sure? If so why should there be any belief that the deadlock will end after the March 2020 election ?

I expect them to pass, but in April they only passed by 30K votes, so it's not impossible for them to miss out if the campaign goes badly.

A similar result is indeed expected, and I don't think that more deadlock would be a surprise. However, a solution is possible even without a shift in voting, if only certain parties would change their mind and agree to something, which I think is realistic.

[danny]

Polls are now open until 23:00 in the Likud primary, with 116,048 potential voters.

[danny]

Looks closer to 80-20, bad defeat for Saar, even Danon had 21% against Bibi. Still can’t win a GE

Actually looking closer to that poll right now: 73.8%-26.2% after 58% of polling places were counted.

[danny]

Is there a chance for Saar to break away and found his own party?

Saar has already conceded and called to support the Likud in the upcoming election.

[danny]

Final result: 72.5%-27.5%

in votes: 41,792-15,885

[danny]

If (very big if) this is the case, the right realistically has 3 parties at risk of missing the threshold (New Right, NU and Jewish Home). The left has 2 (DU and Green Party), so they're at an advantage in this scenario.

I don't see much of an ideological difference between JH and NU anyways.

There's no chance of NU running alone, but Smotrich is threatening to join with the New Right.

[danny]

So Shaffir left Labour after losing the leadership election, took over a random minor Green party just like that and joined up with Meretz only to dump them again? What's the point? Why didn't she just wait for Peretz to inevitably flop and leave?

I feel like she overestimated her influence and thought that her defection would either force a union on the left or cause Labour to fall apart with the new Democratic Union taking its place. Now that it didn't happen Meretz aren't enthusiastic about keeping her around, so she's stuck without a party.

[danny]

Aren't Labor polling better than Meretz/DU in every aspect?

Labour are polling better, although they haven't improved from last election. And while Shaffir didn't prove herself as valuable as Meretz might have hoped, they do run the risk of missing out entirely if they just dump her.

[danny]

The musical chairs on the right continue, as Smotrich joins with New Right. Peretz now has to decide if he's joining again or going alone with Otzma.

[danny]

Also, I'm compelled to be edgy and say the D avatar is for you, but we need to keep some ORDER among the Israeli posters (hint hint Danny go R! hint)

Avatars are about US politics, and I'm not a fan of the Republican party.

[danny]

What are the odds Tzipi will return to politics in the 20s? In a world where Bibi didn’t exist she could have been PM.

FWIW Livni was recently asked about it and she said that she would never return to politics.

[danny]

B&W replaced Yabarkan with Andrei Kuznov, who was their spokesperson in the Russian media recently.

[danny]

Peretz's collection of failed moves led to Jewish Home being the weakest part of the union with just one realistic spot on the combined list.

[danny]

No idea about Israel, but here the very last spot is sometimes used as a way for "honorary" candidates to appear on the ballot symbolically while not getting elected.

For example the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, appeared 36/36 on Podemos' list for Barcelona in the last election.

This is not all that common but it sometimes happens

The tradition in Israel is to use these spots for retired politicians from the party.

[danny]

Which parties do Ethiopian Jews generally favour?

Likud in first, followed by BW and then Shas.

[danny]

Likud is actually trying to get Arab support this time, spending actual resources there, and Bibi did an interview with an Arabic website.

[danny]

Likud is actually trying to get Arab support this time, spending actual resources there, and Bibi did an interview with an Arabic website.

Lol Arab48?

Panet

[danny]

Yep. Leib has said he could go into govt with the joint labour-meretz team, which includes some Arab parties. He has said nothing of the sort concerning the Arab Joint List and Odeh. In fact, last govt formation he tried to push back on any govts including these parochial forced, be they Arab or haredim.

Labour-Meretz includes individual Arabs (as does Beitenu itself), but the only parties represented in the alliance are Labour, Meretz, and Gesher, all of which are mostly Jewish.

[danny]

In an hour or so we'll get a report of turnout as of 10am. In the meantime here you can determine the party with which your views most closely align:


https://electionsvote.mako.co.il

I got:

Joint List 90%
Meretz-Labor 85%
Blue and White 73%

Sounds about right.

91%  Yisrael Beitenu
74% Likud
67% Blue And White

I understand why it gave me Beitenu, but I voted Likud.

[danny]

Cheers!

Since we have nothing to do but wait, there's a question I always wanted to ask about Likud: how much coherence does it have as a party without Netanyahu as its leader? Are its supporters natural allies with one another ideologically? Does it have a web of internal institutions that help sustain it? Bibi's been the dominating personality in it for so long I've never really been able to tell how much there is (left) underneath him.

In terms of national questions they are close enough to one another that there isn't to much trouble. Economically though there are big differences, going from the ideological capitalism of Sharren Haskel to the union politics of Haim Katz (the two are quite open about their dislike for one another). Most try to be vaguely capitalist without really going out of their way to move the country in that direction.