Yacimovich: Labor needs 25 seats to form coalition

Labor head claims Likud worth 21 mandates when separated from Yisrael Beytenu; slams Livni, Lapid as "here today, gone tomorrow."

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Yacimovich 521 (photo credit: GIDEON MARKOWICZ / FLASH 90)
Yacimovich 521
(photo credit: GIDEON MARKOWICZ / FLASH 90)
Labor party leader Shelly Yacimovich on Friday expressed optimism that her party could form the next coalition if it were to receive 25 mandates in the January 22 election.
While Likud Beytenu is currently slated to receive 34 mandates, according to a Smith Research poll conducted this week for The Jerusalem Post and the financial newspaper Globes, Yacimovich told Labor supporters at a rally in the Jezreel Valley on Friday that Likud, which is running on a joint list with Yisrael Beytenu, accounts for only 21 of those mandates.
"When you break up the strange entity that was created from the combining of Likud and Yisrael Beytenu, you see today in in-depth polls that Likud is worth only 21 mandates," Yacimovich stated. "If [Labor] gets 25 mandates, the president will task us with forming the government, and that is our goal in the next two weeks," she added.
The Jerusalem Post poll found that Labor would win 18 mandates if elections were held today.
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Yacimovich attacked the Tzipi Livni Party as a faction that "does not have a right to exist and was formed solely out of unjustified pretension and a lack of understanding that it would hurt the [Center-Left] bloc."
The Labor leader added that Livni's faction and Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid were both parties "with no roots" that would be "here today and gone tomorrow."
"Votes must not be wasted on small and mid-sized parties," Yacimovich contended, saying that only by supporting Labor could voters hope to unseat Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu.