Poll: Gantz beats Netanyahu again, but still lacks majority to form gov't
Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu Party remains the kingmaker; Otzma Yehudit passes the electoral threshhold to enter the Knesset.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFBlue and White leader Benny Gantz, Yisrael Beteynu chairman Avigdor Liberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu(photo credit: REUTERS)
A poll conducted by Channel 12 predicted on Thursday that the Blue and White Party would win 34 seats (one more than in the September election), beating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, which dropped down to 31, one less than in the last election. But based on the poll results, neither party would still not be able to form a government.The results for the other parties that would make it into the Knesset are: Arab Joint List 14 (one more); Labor-Gesher-Meretz nine (see below); Yisrael Beytenu eight, and Yemina and UTJ with seven each (all three the same number of seats as last time); and Shas six (the biggest loser entering the Knesset, with three seats less).In the last election, Labor-Gesher got six seats, and the Democratic Union, which included Meretz, got five. The left-wing parties therefore had 11 seats, so the current poll predicts a net loss for them of two seats.Otzma Yehudit would win four seats, passing the electoral threshold and making them the biggest gainer. The party's leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was recently snubbed out of a right-wing union with his former ally Education Minister Rafi Peretz of the National Union, who chose instead to join Yemina, an alliance with the New Right and Bayit Yehudi.If true, this means that there still will not be a bloc able to form a government. The poll found that if elections were held today, the left-wing bloc (including the Joint List supporting it from the outside) would have the same 57 seats it had last time, and the right-wing bloc the same 55 seats. Yisrael Beytenu – remaining the kingmaker to pass the 61-seat minimum – would also have the same eight seats they had in the September election.
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