Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[Famous Mortimer]

Deri ruled out Herzog? That's just weird.

[Famous Mortimer]

Why do people have so much trouble with this? "BLOCS" ARE NOT A REAL THING. THEY ARE NOT OFFICIAL.

[Famous Mortimer]

Why do people have so much trouble with this? "BLOCS" ARE NOT A REAL THING. THEY ARE NOT OFFICIAL.

[Famous Mortimer]

Are there any substantial divides that would preclude a Likud-Zionist Union core to the next government? If Likud defeats the Zionist Union, isn't that very likely?

Between Herzog and Netanyahu, no. Between the parties bases, huge. Labor would crash in the polls and Herzog would face a primary within 2 years.

[Famous Mortimer]

What's so weird about Tamar Gozansky? She's a former Hadash MK from the 90s. It's very common for former MKs to be given ceremonial spaces in the hundred and teens.

I am a little bit surprised there are two more Jews in the top 20 though. Since a lot of seats in the teens are people who plan on resigning half way through their term as part of rotation, it's possible these Jews might get in if someone dies or resigns.

[Famous Mortimer]

Interesting, it appears Leah Tsemel Warszawski, number 20, the second highest Jew on the list, is a member of Balad, not Hadash.

At least, her husband had previously run on the Balad list, so I'm just assuming.

[Famous Mortimer]

Former Labor MK Nadia Hilou, the first Arab Christian women in the Knesset, died at age 61 of an unspecified illness.

She had been 18th on the Labor list in the 2013 election but had opted not to run in the primaries this time, no doubt because of her illness.

[Famous Mortimer]

What was wrong with Villner?

[Famous Mortimer]

These posts are trash. Move them to the garbage.

[Famous Mortimer]

What separates Meretz and Hadash is totally symbolic but both sides take their symbols very seriously.

[Famous Mortimer]

So, the latest polls fairly consistently suggest that ZU may be about 3 seats ahead of Likud and that Kahlon will hold the ballance, as long as the "Arabs" are willing to endorse Herzog. In fact, it is gradually getting into the zone where Netanyahu may need not only Kachlon, but also every other rightwing and religious party (bar the person of Baruch Marzel) to form the government. It is hard to see YA joining Netanyahu after the recent experience, so it is either the narrow right wing or a very different government. So, some of the interesting questions now are

a) would Kahlon be willing to go into a narrow rightwing government with (almost) the entire right wing

b) would the "Arabs" be willing to offer sufficiently firm external support to a minority Labor/Livni government (in exchange, for, say, either Khenin or Tibi becoming the Knesset Speaker).

c) Would Likud be willing to go into a grand coalition WITHOUT Netanyahu being given the PM spot even for part of the term (e.g., if Labor insists on different Likud leadership as price of the rotation).

d) If the grand coalition is formed and "Arabs" are the largest opposition group in the Knesset, would they be allowed to become the official opposition?

a) Yes. Why not?

b) Probably. Is the speakership something that's been talked about though? I wouldn't think the Arabs would even care about that. There would just have to be very concrete moves on the peace issue.

c) It would be dumb for Labor to ask Likud to pick a new leader, stick with Bibi since he's semi-unpopular and there's no one else to take over as of now. Why help Likud by making them pick a shiny new leader? Then again, it's Labor. They are stupid.

d) Most likely.

[Famous Mortimer]

Sarah Silverman endorses Meretz.

[Famous Mortimer]

The religious parties are not dogmatically free market, quiet the opposite. So Kahlon would be quite comfortable sitting in a government with them. He'd be one of the few members of the coalition who supports the idea of a Palestinian state but that's never been his key issue. In fact, he used to oppose the Gaza pull out, so it's not like he's a huge supporter, more just someone who's hypothetically okay with it. Liberman holds pretty much the same position so Kahlon wouldn't even be the only one. No reason Kahlon couldn't form a government with the right. I suspect he ends up going with whoever comes in first though.

[Famous Mortimer]

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.646709

Regarding Netanyahu, the Julian knives are already coming out. The best thing to happen to them right before an election.

Galon has a primary/committee to answer to- if she loses seats, regardless of whether they stay in the Knesset, especially considering where Meretz was polling this time last year.

Lieberman is harder to answer for, considering he's basically a one man show. However, if people are unwilling to run with him, or jump ship, I could see him reincorporating himself into Likud, espacially when Bibi retires.

Yeah, Liberman, probably, will rejoin Likud.

Probably a likely bet.  Especially since the next Likud leader will almost certainly be to the right of Bibi.

This doesn't really matter. As many have pointed out, Lieberman is not categorically to the right of Netanyahu. It depends on what day of the week it is.

[Famous Mortimer]

To form a micro party or to join Likud?

[Famous Mortimer]

Knesset Jeremy was out with his average for the week of March 1-7, 2015, today. The numbers add up conveniently to exactly 120 seats.

Zionist Union (Herzog) 23
Likud (Netanyahu) 23
Joint List (Odeh) 13
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 12
Jewish Home (Bennett) 12
Kulanu (Kahlon) 8
Shas (Deri) 7
United Torah Judaism (Litzman) 7
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman) 6
Meretz (Gal-On) 5
Yahad (Yishai) 4

I've had a busy weekend and missed Knesset Jeremy's last poll average, for the week of March 8-13, 2015. The numbers added up to exactly 120 seats once again.

Zionist Union (Herzog) 24
Likud (Netanyahu) 22
Joint List (Odeh) 13
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 12
Jewish Home (Bennett) 12
Kulanu (Kahlon) 9
Shas (Deri) 7
United Torah Judaism (Litzman) 7
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman) 5
Meretz (Gal-On) 5
Yahad (Yishai) 4

The rush to the center from the right continued over the course of the final week. Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu lost one seat each (specifically, Netanyahu's personal choice Anat Berko and rightist Druze MK Hamad Amar) to Zionist Union and Kulanu, which gained a seat each (specifically, Eyal Ben-Reuven and Roy Folkman).

For sh**ts and giggles, I also worked out what the numbers would be if all parties over or underperform exactly the way they did in 2013. This would put Yahad under the threshold at only a 2-seat performance, so the last two seats would be given to the two parties who came closest to an extra seat in KJ's final prediction -- the Zionist Union and Yesh Atid. Would be a big leftist overperformance if this was the case (of course, so was 2013):

Zionist Union (Herzog) 23
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 21
Likud (Netanyahu) 20
Joint List (Odeh) 13
Jewish Home (Bennett) 10
Kulanu (Kahlon) 9
United Torah Judaism (Litzman) 8
Shas (Deri) 7
Meretz (Gal-On) 5
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman) 4

My personal prediction is:

Zionist Union (Herzog) 24
Likud (Netanyahu) 19
Joint List (Odeh) 13
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 13
Jewish Home (Bennett) 12
Kulanu (Kahlon) 12
Shas (Deri) 8
United Torah Judaism (Litzman) 7
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman) 4
Meretz (Gal-On) 4
Yahad (Yishai) 4

Which is basically just some minor modifications of the polls in terms of who normally over/underperforms and who I think has momentum.

I think Yesh Atid is unlikely to pull the same trick twice. If anyone is going to have a surprise surge, it's going to be Kahlon.

[Famous Mortimer]

What's the Kadima effect?

[Famous Mortimer]

Re:Livni giving up the rotation deal

GOOD

[Famous Mortimer]

3.25 is still one of the lowest thresholds in the industrialized world. For all the hand wringing that goes on, Yachad is really the only party in danger of not making it and they would have had trouble with the hold threshold. Even before the Arab parties united, UAL and Hadash were more likely than not to make it as well.

[Famous Mortimer]

Could someone give a list of the parties sorted by whether they are left/right leaning? i.e.  which ones are likely to form a coalition with each other (and which ones are up for grabs)

Sorry for the noob-ish level of ignorance. I can't keep track of all the party names for the life of me!

It's been done twice already in this thread. Just go the first page.

As to who is likely to form a coalition with who, aside from some very obvious stuff like Meretz (leftists) prefer a coalition with Labor and Jewish Home (religious conservatives) prefer a coalition with Likud, nothing is set in stone.

[Famous Mortimer]

Getting just 8 seats has to be a catastrophically bad result for Jewish Home - not too long ago Bennett seemed to have so much momentum and they were looking to get in the high teens

Hell, he was running in second place before Labor and Livni merged. There was even (somewhat ridiculous but not that ridiculous) talk of him being PM.

[Famous Mortimer]

In 2009 didn't Netanyahu end up forming a government even though Kadima under Livni had one or two seats more than Likud?

Yes. Labor technically isn't out of the running but they really needed to come in first to convince Kulanu and Shas (and possibly Yisrael Beytenu) to go against their natural right-wing leanings and join them in a coalition.

[Famous Mortimer]

For Likud, it looks like both Avi Dichter and Tzipi Hotovely are safe, meaning there court wrangling was for naught. Also, Druze MK Ayoob Kara is back in.

For the Zionist Union, all the Hatnuah candidates made it in, including the Green Movement candidate, that's something. In addition to Zouheir Bahloul, it looks like they even elected a second Arab as well, Druze union activist Saleh Saad.

For the Joint List, Tibi's cousin, the second member of Ta'al probably got in.

For The Jewish Home, it looks like Uri Ariel is the only member of Tkuma left, is that correct?

For Yesh Atid, we're not sure but it looks like it's possible Livni defector Elazar Stern was re-elected.

For Kulanu, nobody interesting got in.

Nothing interesting with the ultra-Orthodox parties either, all faceless drones as usual.

Meretz is the same 5 people as last time.

Beytenu stays in (as I expected) so Orly Levy gets to serve along her brother from Likud. Landver also stays in. Druze guy just misses out (probably) and everyone else who got elected is a facebook Liberbot.

[Famous Mortimer]

Rivlin calls for national unity government, Netanyahu will work towards that by ditching Bayit Yehudi and Lieberman, according to Haaretz...

Unless the Likud partners bag a couple of more seats, the math does not work dumping Lieberman. Apparently the religious parties will not tolerate YA being in their coalition, so that leaves just Kalunu to get to 64 votes, and Lieberman has five votes, so he's needed.

Read carefully. What he meant was that in the UNITY government there would be no JH or YB. Instead, of course, there would be ZU and Likud, and the two together are almost in the mid 50s.

Basically, we are talking in this case of ZU, Likud, Kulanu and YA. A broad centrist coalition - possibly with the religious on top. Is that possible? I guess so. Probable? To early to tell.

Bibi no doubt will insist on the inclusion of Shas and UTJ. He kowtowed to them even when they weren't in his last coalition. He is terrified of alienating the ultra-Orthodox because he always wants them as back up coalition partners. Even if an all secular government is inexplicably formed with Likud, Labor, Yesh Atid, and Kulanu, you can be sure it won't make any moves towards secularization under Bibi's leadership.

[Famous Mortimer]

After 48K votes counted (in %):

ZU: 24.88
Likud: 22.17
JH: 12.04
YA: 8.16
Kulanu: 6.89
Meretz: 5.29
Yachad: 4.46
Shas: 4.24
JL: 3.87
UTJ: 3.05
Beitenu: 2.64
Green Leaf: 1.63

Still very early of course.

Link?