Since the March 23 elections were called it seems not a day goes by without us hearing that some public official, past and present, had formed or plans to form a party and run for the 24th Knesset.
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As things stand, it seems that by Feb. 4 – when all interested parties must officially submit their applications to the Central Election Committee, the Israeli public will have about 30 factions from which to choose, about 15 of them recently formed.
Among them we can named former Likud MK Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party; Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai's Israelis party; former Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah's Tnufa; former Labor MK Danny Yatom, who has resurrected the Pensioners party; former Finance Ministry Accountant-General Yaron Zelekha's Economic party, and former Shah MK Haim Amsalem's Am Shalem faction.
These will be joined by a host of esoteric factions that have zero chances of passing the prerequisite four-seat electoral threshold. These parties vie in nearly every election with the sole purpose of using campaign ads in the media to get the attention they crave.
Every election campaign see thousands of votes lost this way. The general elections in September 2019, for example, saw 126,000 votes for 20 slates that didn't make it past the electoral threshold. Nine of the parties in the running won fewer than 1,000 each.
The March 2020 elections has 21 slates that failed to get elected, winning a combined 37,000 votes.
Israeli voters must keep in mind that if they vote for fad parties or slates whose chances of passing the electoral threshold are virtually nonexistent to begin with, they may as well not vote at all.
All polls indicate that the current election campaign will be a very close one. Every vote counts and we cannot afford to have so many of the be essentially thrown away.
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