Relay of military by television stars to beat Netanyahu at the polls | International

The fourth elections come amid the first outbreaks of a return to normality in Israel after a year of pandemic. The success of the vaccination campaign, with more than half of the citizens immunized, and the establishment of relations with four Arab countries are the prime minister’s main asset, despite the fact that his corruption trial will force him to sit down back on the bench next month.

The latest polls published assign 30 deputies in the Knesset (120-seat parliament) to Netanyahu’s Likud party. But not even with his ultra-Orthodox and far-right allies he manages to add an absolute majority, the only option left by the electoral law in Israel for the inauguration as chief executive. The ultra-proportional system that governs legislatures – a fragmentation of the Chamber into up to 14 parties with a minimum of four deputies – makes the formation of a government coalition a puzzle.

In the alternative bloc, the centrist Yesh Atid party has 20 seats expected at the head of a nebula of opposition forces. Led by journalist Lapid, the center-left has two other former television stars at the top of the list: Labor Party member Merav Michaeli and pacifist Nitzan Horowitz. In the three previous elections, of the loop of elections forced by the political blockade in Israel Lapid was the only civilian in an alliance with three former heads of the Armed Forces. In addition to Gantz, who led the operations of the Gaza war in 2014, there were also former generals Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Yaalon.

The pact that Gantz and Ashkenazi signed with Netanyahu to join the Government blew up the centrist Blue and White coalition, which won 33 seats a year ago and can now be left out of Parliament by not exceeding the minimum threshold of 3.25% of national votes.

“Participation at the polls, in unprecedented circumstances due to the pandemic, will condition the results,” warns the election analyst Camil Fuchs to relativize the forecasts of the polls, in which the percentage of undecided is around 20% of the census. “These legislation are presented as the most unpredictable in the history of Israel, since there are parties with representation that run the risk of being left out of the Knesset. The votes that are lost within each block will go to the benefit of the other ”, said this expert in a teleconference with foreign journalists.

While the most extreme right of the Religious Zionist Party – whose list includes the political heirs of an outlawed anti-Arab Jewish force – seems to be guaranteed a presence in the House, Meretz’s pacifist left is on the verge of failing to break the bar. .

Fragmentation of the split-right Likud

The key to these elections also lies in the fragmentation of the right wing, which does not appear in a monolithic bloc around Netanyahu’s Likud. Three former squires of the prime minister, who were heads of his internal cabinet and ministers in important departments, have been leaving him in recent years.

First it was the populist Avigdor Lieberman who broke with the prime minister and forced him to repeat the elections for the first time in 2019. Then the right-wing radical Netftali Bennett was unchecked in the second legislative elections, and after the third the conservative Gideon Saar left the Likud , who had dared to challenge the party leader in internal primaries.

Both Lieberman and Saar claim to have burned their ships so as not to make an agreement with the current head of government. In principle, they only have the option of joining the center-left against their former mentor. Bennett, however, remains ambiguous. Your decision, if the parliamentary arithmetic is right, can be decisive.

The Arab parties, which represent a fifth of the Israeli population, have not come together. Raam, a conservative Islamist force, is confident of more public investment in Arab communities if Likud wins. The Arab Joint List will support the opposition bloc.

The dislocated parliamentary puzzle that the polls will throw, according to the published polls, has a maximum expiration date set on July 6. If by then neither Netanyahu nor Lapid have been able to form a majority coalition, the legislature will automatically conclude and the fifth legislative elections since April 2019 will be called on October 5.

Whether this curse of biblical overtones is fulfilled again for Israeli voters will depend on their vote this Tuesday. Both the victory and the repetition of the legislative elections – which will keep the current Cabinet in office until the end of the year – would be beneficial results for Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in the history of the Jewish State, to continue protected by power. during the fraud and bribery trial that awaits you.

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