Less than a day before voting starts for Israel’s fifth election in less than four years, two final polls have predicted former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one seat shy from winning an outright majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Israel’s Kan public broadcaster and Maariv newspaper released two polls on late Thursday and Friday respectively, with both showing Netanyahu’s right-wing four-bloc coalition winning just 60 of parliament’s 120 seats.
Another deadlocked election on Tuesday could result in Israel going to yet another election within months, leaving Prime Minister Yair Lapid remaining in office as a caretaker.
In a bid to shore up support and avoid yet another political impasse, Netanyahu's Likud has allied itself with controversial far-right party leaders such as Bazalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party, expected to net between 12 and 14 seats, and Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Othman Yehudit party, expected to win four.
Smotrich has previously called for an apartheid-style segregation between Jewish and Arab women in Israel’s maternity wards.
Ben-Gvir, on the other hand, has in the past called for disloyal politicians to be deported, along with any Palestinian who throws stones at security forces.
If elected, Netanyahu has not ruled out Ben-Gvir as a viable candidate for police minister.
Following the latest polls showing Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc one seat short of a majority, a video was posted on his social media channels showing him stacking 60 paper cups on top of his desk to resemble the bloc.
He says, “If [the one seat] doesn’t go to Likud, and if Yesh Atid is just one seat bigger than Likud, then Lapid will form the government,
He goes on to say that in that scenario, “all of us will be in the opposition” as he knocks the tower of cups over.
Watch this to end. Netanyahu, in what appears to be a fit of rage, demolishes a pyramid of disposable cups and growls "we'll ALL be in the opposition!" if his Likud party doesn't get enough votes on Tuesday. He leaves the impression Lapid's Yesh Atid may triumph. #IsraElex22 pic.twitter.com/nzS1crgK3W
— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 (@NTarnopolsky) October 30, 2022
According to the Israeli Central Elections Committee, this election will potentially see 209,000 first-time voters who could not have a say in Israel’s last elections in March 2021.
Netanyahu is still facing 2019 indictments over bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, charges which he denies and calls a “rigged” political witch-hunt meant to keep him out of office.
