Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his new challenger on the Right, former MK Gideon Sa'ar, have in recent days stepped up their efforts to court disaffected Russian-speaking Jews and particularly those who voted for Yisrael Beytenu, a party led by Moldovan-born Avigdor Lieberman.
After Likud lawmaker Ze'ev Elkin left the governing party in December, this created a void in its campaign, as he was seen as a go-between with Russian-speaking Israelis.
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It appears that Netanyahu's Likud and the New Hope party led by Sa'ar want to cater to that voting bloc by putting on their candidate list a Russian-speaking Israeli who would lead to a defection of Yisrael Beytenu voters and potentially keep Lieberman away from Knesset, thus preventing him from holding on to the balance of power as he has done for the past three election cycles.
New Hope believes that many of Lieberman's voters could be swayed to support Sa'ar because he is running on a ticket that is very similar to Lieberman's: staunchly right-wing, but also very much against Netanyahu.
Lieberman, while considered hawkish, has refused to sit with Netanyahu because of the bad blood between them and due to the prime minister's ongoing corruption trial. He has even explored the possibility of joining a center-left coalition to help unseat Netanyahu, and many on the Right have said his stance has forced the country into calling two early elections because of the paralysis in the legislative chamber.
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