Ra'am party chairman Mansour Abbas has reportedly sent a message to New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar this week indicating that he was open to working with the Center-Left bloc seeking to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 23 election, Kan 11 News reported.
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Ra'am, originally part of the Joint Arab List faction comprising the Balad, Ta'al and Hadash parties, broke away from the alliance last month in the wake of a rift between Abbas and the heads of the other Arab parties, which was brought on by an apparent rapprochement between Ra'am and Likud.
According to the latest polls, Ra'am is hovering around the four-seat electoral threshold, but even if elected, Manoust has not declared which bloc he would endorse.
Last week Abbas also called on Sa'ar not to associate him with Netanyahu's bloc, saying this amounted to an "insult."
Netanyahu has recently been in talks with Abbas and has attempted to court Arab-Israelis to support his right-wing coalition after the March 23 vote, promising to crackdown on organized crime and invest more money in the Arab sector.
Moreover, Netanyahu announced last month that he would appoint the country's first Arab-Israeli as a minister in his new government should he win the election.
"I am proud that Nail Zoabi, a valued educator who has dedicated years to Arab society, is joining the Likud list," Netanyahu said in a video on his Facebook page.
The move is a striking change from earlier election cycles where the premier condemned Arab Israeli lawmakers as anti-Zionist terror sympathizers.
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But with the latest reporting, Abbas appears to be leaving the door open for possible talks with the Center-Left bloc, which includes the Labor, Meretz, Yesh Atid, Blue and White, and Yisrael Beytenu parties, as is likely to be endorsed by the Joint Arab List.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
