Israeli election update #10 - The Likud primaries and leadership race were held yesterday, and the first result was that Netanyahu easily won the leadership race. Danny Dannon only received about 20% of the vote, and in comparison to his 5th place finish in the last primary, is not even in the top ten this primary. Although the results are not yet final, the current numbers point to the following results: 1) Bibi 2) Yuli Edelstein 3) Gilad Erdan 4) Yisrael Katz 5) Miri Regev 6) Silvan Shalom 7) Moshe Yaalon 8) Yariv Levin 9) Tzachi Hanegbi 10) Zeev Elkin. 52% of eligible voters turned out to vote in the primaries, or about 50,000 voters. - In one interesting Likud primary twist, it appears that Moshe Feiglin, who recruited many members into Likud in support of his Jewish leadership faction, did not make it into a realistic spot on the list. Perhaps Feiglin should not have dropped out of the leadership race after all, as it might have also effected his votes in the primary. What will be interesting to see is if the lack of Feiglin in on the slate sends Likud voters from Feiglin’s faction over to Jewish Home in the March election. Perhaps we might see some effect in polls that take place in the near future. It’s no secret that Netanyahu despised Feign and used every trick in the book to keep him from doing better in primary elections, but perhaps this outcome is not something he considered. - There has been some chatter recently that Jewish Home is like a younger more activist Likud. That’s somewhat born out by the age of the activists in each party, but also that the voter pools are similar in outlook. I’m sure Netanyahu doesn’t like a comparison that makes Bennett out to be a younger version of him (even if they both served in Sayeret Matkal and Bennett used to be Netanyahu’s chief of staff). Bennett has been making a name from his campaign videos, and in what is perhaps a not-so-subtle wink at the young/old comparison has posted a brilliant video of him simply jogging through a group of Likud members during the primary yesterday, showing them all wanting to meet him and take their pictures with him (youtu.be/VaAJ2rLex0M). - Jewish Home’s video output is actually quite prolific. In another very smart video (youtu.be/oMsn4AzgWBw), they show clips of other Israeli party leaders speaking to the international press apologizing for Israel, and then show Naftali Bennett decidedly not apologizing to the press. It’s a continuation of the theme of his first video where he said the time for apologizing is over. I don’t know how much an effect these videos will have, but considering the one above, there is certainly going to be a group, perhaps of young voters, who would have been voting for Likud and are now thinking about voting Jewish Home. It makes one wonder if the polls that show Likud gaining 6 seats over their current 18 are accurate or not. Watching the polls in February and March should be interesting. In the end, Likud and Jewish Home are in this together as they have clearly aligned their fates after the election. Votes shifting from one party to the other wont have a major effect on the coalition probabilities, unless Jewish Home actually manages to surpass Likud in votes. - Although announced earlier, Labor/Hatnua has now made it official that Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg is running on their slate, and more importantly is officially their candidate for the Finance Ministry if they win. What is a bit strange about this is that his position on the slate is not yet set, but is reported to be between 10 and 20 on the list. While he is probably assured a spot in the Knesset in that range, the role of Finance Minister is usually assigned to one of the top people on the slate, not to someone much further down. I’m sure the negotiations which we will never hear about were quite interesting to have arrived at such a situation. - A recent poll was done of Arab citizens in Israel to figure out what scenarios will net them the most seats in the next Knesset. The poll was done with 403 Arabs, of whom 81% were Muslim, 9% Druze and 10% Christian. Some interesting insights can be found in the results. If the Arab parties unite, they are expected to win 10-11 seats, 10 if headed by either Balad head Zahhalka or Hadash head Barakei, and 11 if headed by UAL-Taal head Ahmed Tibi. If the parties run separately, 26% support UAL-Taal, 18% Hadash, 10% Balad, and 15% support mainstream parties. 28% of Arabs were undecided. If the undecided are equally distributed, then the poll predicts 5-6 seats for UAL-Taal, 4 for Hadash, and Balad would not reach the threshold (that means Haneen Zoabi would be out of the Knesset with any assistance from Danny Danon). Arabs votes for mainstream parties would contribute about 3 seats. Among Druze, 71% supported mainstream (i.e. largely Jewish) parties. Among Christians, 59% supported Hadash (which also has a Jewish candidate).
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 10:24:55 +0000