BREAKING NEWS

Bayit Yehudi and Tekuma still arguing over joint electoral list

Tensions between the Bayit Yehudi and Tekuma parties over whether the two will run on a joint list or split into two for the coming election continued to mount on Thursday, as two polls showed that Tekuma would gain seven Knesset seats if it were to run with Shas malcontent MK Eli Yishai, as has been rumored.
In the 2013 election, Tekuma, a hard-line national-religious party, ran together with Bayit Yehudi and received four reserved spots on the joint list, while Bayit Yehudi held primary elections to determine the order of Knesset candidates on the list.
The Bayit Yehudi party is, however, disinclined to make a similar offer for the current elections, believing the political influence of Tekuma has weakened.
“We will have more democratically elected MKs this time,” said one Bayit Yehudi source. “Tekuma’s influence on the party will decrease and [the result] will reflect the national- religious mainstream. We are moving forward.”
The source said that two or three reserved spots are the maximum on offer, with only two of those spots being placed in the top 10 of the electoral list. In the joint list for the 2013 elections, Tekuma received four spots in the top 10.