Were elections held at this time, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's Yamina party would barely be able to cross the electoral threshold, a survey by Direct Polls showed Tuesday.
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By law, any party vying in the Israeli elections must secure at least 3.25% of the votes to cross the electoral threshold. This translates into four seats in parliament – which is what the poll projected Yamina would win.
The 2021 Israeli legislative election saw Bennett's Yamina party secure six seats. He partnered with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who won 17 seats, to oust them-PM Benjamin Netanyahu. While Likud had won 30 mandates in the election – and was the winning party in the three election campaigns that preceded it – Netanyahu was unable to form a government.
Bennett then did what was thought to be politically implausible and forged a power-sharing deal with Lapid that granted him the premiership. As part of the deal, Lapid is slated to become prime minister in August 2023.
The move sparked outrage among right-wing voters, pundits, and politicians, who continuously accuse Bennett of defrauding the public.
Despite Yamina's poor showing in Tuesday's poll, the coalition retained its razor-thin advantage over the right-wing bloc, with the former securing 60 Knesset seats to the Right's 53.
Were elections held at this time, the poll found that the Likud would win 36 seats, followed by Yesh Atid (17), Blue and White (9), Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas (9), the Religious Zionist Party (8), Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism (7), Labor (7), Joint Arab List (7), Yisrael Beytenu (6), Meretz (5), the Islamist Ra'am party (5), and Yamina (4).
Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party fails to cross the electoral threshold.
Direct Polls said of its findings that, "all the polls in the last six months indicate that after the initial shocks and the transfer of five seats back from Yamina and New Hope to the right-wing bloc, the rest of the electorate expressed support for the coalition.
"This week, for the first time, we are seeing the transfer of almost two seats back to the right-wing bloc and an increase in the number of undecided voters."
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