Likud-Beitenu could lose seats
BENJAMIN Netanyahu’s election list is losing support as polling day gets closer, according to public-opinion surveys published this week.
BENJAMIN Netanyahu’s (pictured) election list is losing support as polling day gets closer, according to public-opinion surveys published this week.
In October, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who leads the Likud party, signed a deal to run on a joint ticket with the Yisrael Beitenu party. The parties currently have a joint strength of 42 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, and they expected to maintain the same strength or gain. Polls commissioned by the parties at the time reportedly suggested that they would gain five seats.
But since the unity pact, independent opinion surveys have suggested there will be a decrease in their joint strength. The predicted loss was small at first, but polls this week predicted that Likud-Beitenu, as the alliance is calling itself, will receive 33 or 34 seats – enough for it to lead the government but not with as strong a mandate as it hoped. The polls were conducted for Channel 2 and Haaretz respectively.
“I don’t have a good answer about the results we see today,” Yair Shamir, number two on Yisrael Beitenu’s election list, admitted on Monday. “We lost seats. I wasn’t part of the [merger] decision.”
The polls were the second cause of woe for Likud-Beitenu this week. The first was the indictment of candidate and Yisrael Beitenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, who until his recent resignation served as foreign minister. He was charged on Sunday with fraud and breach of trust for allegedly promoting an Israeli diplomat in gratitude for leaking him information about a police investigation against him. The charges were sharper than initially expected, as they included the indication that his former deputy in the Foreign Ministry Danny Ayalon will testify against him.
Lieberman has said that he is “sure” that he will “be cleared, chair my party and return to the Foreign Ministry to lead its policies the way they should be led”.
In terms of the polls Likud-Beitenu’s loss is Jewish Home’s gain. This religious party, which positions itself to the right of Likud-Beitenu has increased its support enormously, and looks set to double its Knesset strength from seven to 14 seats. This is despite a recent attempt by Likud-Beitenu to discredit the party.
Jewish Home leader and reservist soldier Naftali Bennett was discussing settlement evacuations on Israeli television and said: “If I receive an order to evict a Jew from his house and expel him, personally, my conscience wouldn’t allow it. I’d ask my commander to exempt me. But I wouldn’t publicly call for disobeying orders.” Likud-Beitenu led an angry reaction against Bennett, and caused him to issue a retraction – but instead of decreasing, Jewish Home’s support has continued to grow.
Camil Fuchs, chief pollster for this week’s Haaretz poll, told The AJN that Likud and Beitenu have scared off some of each other’s voters. “A lot of the Likud voters who don’t want to vote for Likud-Beitenu are religious people who don’t like Lieberman,” he said, explaining that Yisrael Beitenu is a mostly secular and predominantly Russian-immigrant party that is often viewed as anti-religious. He said that the indictment against Lieberman is also putting off Likud voters.
Among the Yisrael Beitenu voter base, “there are people who feel that their agendas will be ignored” in the joint party, said Fuchs, elaborating that they fear that priorities like secular marriage will be overlooked in the partnership.
NATHAN JEFFAY
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