With one month to go before Israelis head to the ballots for the fourth time in two years, it appears that barring a dramatic change, the March 23 elections will fail to yield a governing coalition.
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A Tuesday poll by Channel 12 News found that were elections head at this time, Likud would win 28 Knesset seats, followed by Yesh Atid (18), New Hope (13), Yamina (11), the Joint Arab List (9), Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas (8), Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism (7), Yisrael Beytenu (7), Labor (6), Blue and White (5), Meretz (4) and the Religious Zionist Party (4).
Failing to cross the four-seat electoral threshold are the Economic party and Ra'am, an Arab party.
These results mean neither political bloc can cobble together an organic coalition. The right-wing bloc has 47 mandates, and even of Yamina, whose leader Naftali Bennett has refused to pledge his support for the bloc – joins it, the bloc would come to 58 seats – three short of the minimal, 61-MK majority necessary to form a government.
The Center-Left bloc, however, has 64 mandates with the Joint Arab List and 62 if Yamina joins it, providing Meretz does so as well.
Netanyahu's approval ratings, however, continued to hold strong, with 31% of respondents saying they would like to see him continue to serve as prime minister. Some 20% favored Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid as prime minister, 15% would like to see New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar become PM, 13% supported Bennett, 15% said none of the leading candidates were suited for the position, and 6% said they had no opinion on the matter.
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