Israel Resilience Party leader Benny Gantz is likely to rule out running on a joint ticket with Labor because of internal polling that show this would hurt the Center-Left, Israel Hayom has learned.
According to the internal polling that Gantz has commissioned, merging the Labor and the Israel Resilience Party candidate lists will not increase the overall size of the center-Left bloc and could strengthen Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
In the Israeli electoral system, voters cast their ballot for a party list rather than for specific candidates. Each party running for the Knesset compiles a list of up to 120 potential Knesset members. The number of representatives of each party who actually wind up serving in the Knesset is based on the percentage of the vote the party gets in a Knesset election.
Left-wing activists have recently launched a campaign to merge the lists of the various parties, saying this is the only way to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So far, Gantz, as well as Labor Chairman Avi Gabbay and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, have ruled out a merger unless they headed the joint list.
The internal polls further show that merging the Israel Resilience Party and Labor lists would, in fact, produce fewer Knesset seats than having the two parties run on two separate lists.
Gantz is due to launch his campaign in a speech on Tuesday at the Tel Aviv Expo. This will be his first political speech since forming a party.
Despite not sharing his political views, Gantz has been a fairly strong candidate in recent polls. Many analysts say the former Israel Defense Forces chief of general staff might turn out to be the most formidable challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he manages to unite the Left behind him.
