Smith conducted a poll for Reshet Bet Radio that was broadcast on Feb 26 2016
Current Knesset seats in [brackets]
27 [30] Likud
19 [24] Zionist Union
18 [11] Yesh Atid
13 [13] The Joint (Arab) List
11 [08] Bayit Yehudi
07 [10] Kulanu
07 [06] Yisrael Beitenu
06 [07] Shas
06 [06] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
06 [05] Meretz
64 [67] Right-Religious
56 [53] Center-Left-Arab
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I don’t get why you group the results like that. It has no grounds since left never formed a government with the arab parties but did so many many many (most of them, actually) times with religious parties.
Great blog by the way, thank you.
Your welcome. I’ve explained this point many times. I’m tracking Phase 2 instead of Phase 3 because you need to pass Phase 2 to get to Phase 3.
To me, the interesting point of this poll is that the current coalition falls into a minority. If these results were to hold and there were no realignments (two BIG ifs), the main result could be to hand Liberman enormous bargaining power. While a centre-left government is inconceivable, I could see one with Yesh Atid and Liberman replacing the Chareidim. What do you think, Jeremy?
You always have to start with Phase 1. I think there will be a realignment. I think the next Knesset will be the first time that less than 10 lists are elected. I wouldn’t be surprised if we also have a record low of lists that run in the next election. The easiest realignment is that Kulanu is not running by itself and will either merge with Likud (more likely) or Yesh Atid (less likely). Practically every Kulanu MK other than Azaria and Oren are former Likud members that have kept very good ties in there, Galant was in the army, but has many Likud ties. Liberman has run on joint lists in the past (2003 & 2013) and I could see him doing it again in the next election as well. We also want to see where Gideon Saar goes.
We are far off but if I was playing coalition building with the above poll as the official Phase 1 results, I’d predict a Phase 2 stalemate. If that was the case President Rivlin would probably give Netanyahu the first crack as building a coalition anyways considering the current coalition has the largest bloc. It is possible in that case that Netanyahu would proceed to cutting a deal with Lapid & Liberman for Phase 3 as you are suggesting at the expense of the Haredi parties.