Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[danny]

Danon's not even in the top 10 at this point? Did his leadership run actually damage him?

He's now up to 10th with 20% counted. Keep in mind that Jerusalem and the settlements aren't in yet, which means that Feiglin is currently out.

[danny]

Gross. Regev is the one who called African migrants cancer and then when she was confronted about it, apologized to cancer patients but not Africans. And also brought up the Holocaust for no reason.

She was put in the "recommended" list of the big Likud unions this time and was expected to be higher up this time.

[danny]

David Levi's son won his district race and will be in the 18th spot.

[danny]

Which unions are those? Is the one Haim Katz is the leader of one of them?

Yes, The big one the Aeronautics workers union, which is headed by Haim Katz.

[danny]

I haven't previous heard about Levy's son. Is he fairly moderate? That must be good news for Netanyahu.

Can't find anything about his opinions, just that he used to be mayor of Bet Shean.

[danny]

Edelstein moved ahead of Ardan into first.

[danny]

the almost final list:

1) Netanyahu
2) Ardan
3) Edelstein
4) Yisrael Katz
5) Regev
6) Shalom
7) Ye'elon
8 ) Elkin
9) Hanegbi
10) Dannon
11) (Bibi's pick)
12) Levin
13) Steinitz
14) Gamliel
15) Akunis
16) David Bitan (district)
17) Haim Katz
18) Jaki Levi (district)
19) Yoav Kish (district)
20) Avi Dichter (the only “new” guy from the national list)
21) David Amsalem (district)
22) Micki Zohar (district)
23) (Bibi's pick)
24) Ayub Kara (minority)
25) Nava Boker (new woman)
26) Hotobeli
27) Avraham Nagusa (new immigrant)

[danny]

So Feiglin is out and Hotovely is out without a lot of luck?

Yes

[danny]

So Feiglin is out and Hotovely is out without a lot of luck?

Yes

What happened to Hotovely? She didn't seem to be a particularly controversial or prominent member. And who are likely to be Bibi's two picks? Is he going to parachute in star candidates, or put in his own loyalists, or could he promote people who did poorly in the primaries who he feels deserve election?

Part of it is that going to events of party activists is quite useful for getting elected, something that Hotovely isn't known for doing much of. The other thing is that 20K new people joined the Jewish Home in the last few weeks, some of those came from the Likud, and the sort of people that would go from the Likud to JH are likely to have voted for Hotovely.

[danny]

Final vote count for the national list:

position   candidate   votes   notes
1   Gilad Ardan   36287   
2   Yuli Edelsein   33900   
3   Yisrael Katz   33259   
4   Miri Regev   31090   
5   Silvan Shalom   28106   
6   Moshe Ye'elon   27096   
7   Ze'ev Elkin   24274   
8   Tzachi Hanegbi   23538   
9   Danny Dannon   22994   
10   Yariv Levin   22497   
11   Yuval Steinitz   22481   
12   Gila Gamliel   22381   
13   Ofir Akunis   21914   
14   Haim Katz   21074   
15   Avi Dichter   20085   
16   Tzipi Hotovely   19331   
17   Moshe Feiglin   13224   
18   Ayub Kara   13115   Moved up for being minority
19   Michael Ratzon   10286   
20   Idan Pinhas   9996   
21   Shevach Shtern   6973   
22   Avraham Nagusa   6801   Moved up for being new immigrant
23   Oren Hazan   5381   
24   Nava Boker   5276   Moved up for being new woman
25   Shai Malka   4511   
26   Miriam Heskel   3739   
27   Amir Veitman   3493   
28   Osnat Mark   3335   
29   Ayelet Galili   2995   
30   Patin Mula   2920   
31   Naftali Naor   2914   
32   Hassan Hayeb   2747   
33   Ayala Shtegman   1501   
34   Netanel Lipan   1336   
35   Ya'akov Keinan   1116   
36   Shimon Sharel   1110   
37   Jacki Pinto   939   
38   Silva Mizrahi   600   

[danny]

Final vote count for the national list:

position   candidate   votes   notes
1   Gilad Ardan   36287   
2   Yuli Edelsein   33900   
3   Yisrael Katz   33259   
4   Miri Regev   31090   
5   Silvan Shalom   28106   
6   Moshe Ye'elon   27096   
7   Ze'ev Elkin   24274   
8   Tzachi Hanegbi   23538   
9   Danny Dannon   22994   
10   Yariv Levin   22497   
11   Yuval Steinitz   22481   
12   Gila Gamliel   22381   
13   Ofir Akunis   21914   
14   Haim Katz   21074   
15   Avi Dichter   20085   
16   Tzipi Hotovely   19331   
17   Moshe Feiglin   13224   
18   Ayub Kara   13115   Moved up for being minority
19   Michael Ratzon   10286   
20   Idan Pinhas   9996   
21   Shevach Shtern   6973   
22   Avraham Nagusa   6801   Moved up for being new immigrant
23   Oren Hazan   5381   
24   Nava Boker   5276   Moved up for being new woman
25   Shai Malka   4511   
26   Miriam Heskel   3739   
27   Amir Veitman   3493   
28   Osnat Mark   3335   
29   Ayelet Galili   2995   
30   Patin Mula   2920   
31   Naftali Naor   2914   
32   Hassan Hayeb   2747   
33   Ayala Shtegman   1501   
34   Netanel Lipan   1336   
35   Ya'akov Keinan   1116   
36   Shimon Sharel   1110   
37   Jacki Pinto   939   
38   Silva Mizrahi   600   

shalom dany,

how did Moshe Feiglin get to number 17 on your list ?
and where did you get this final list from ?

This is not the final likud list, this is just votes for the national list. The final list will include Bibi, his two hand picked choices , and the district candidates. You can find the full list a few posts earlier.

[danny]

Has there been any speculation about who Bibi will pick?

Might he pick Hotovely, since apparently they are close now? Or would that be too anti-democratic and cause resentment?

I don't know who he will pick, but I don't think it will someone who ran in the primaries. Also, Hotovely has a good chance of getting in anyway, close elections could cause votes to go towards the big two, like in 2009.

[danny]

When is the deadline for submitting the lists, so we'll know about all the candidates and all non-candidates? End of January?

January 29.

[danny]

Haaretz reports that Faina Kirschenbaum asked Lieberman not to seek reelection, but that Lieberman convinced her to seek another term on the Yisrael Beiteinu list. JPost reports that Netanyahu is looking for a woman to fill the 11th slot on the Likud list, and speculates that Miriam Feirberg, the mayor of Netanya, could be it. Arutz Sheva has a conspiracy theory-ish but interesting article out saying that prominent Netanyahu ally and Modi'in mayor Haim Bibas waged an undercover anti-Feiglin campaign that was responsible for his poor showing.

Jewish Home's primaries will be on the fourteenth, but Jewish Home is more obsessed with reserving spots than Likud, so large parts of the list are already apparent. Slot 1 is reserved for the leader -- Naftali Bennett. Slots 2, 9, 14, and 18 are reserved for members of Tkuma -- likely to be Uri Ariel, Zvulun Kalfa, Orit Strook, and someone new, in that order (though Strook could be bumped up for being a woman). Slots 4, 8, 12, and 17 are reserved for women, with 4 likely to go to MK Ayelet Shaked and 8 likely to go to MK Shuli Moalem. Slots 3, 6, and 11 are reserved for candidates of Bennett's choosing, with star candidate Yinon Magal having been promised one of these slots and likely to get the third. Lastly, 10 is reserved for a member of the Jewish Home's national committee, so it will certainly be someone new -- there are four candidates running for this slot. So, heavily speculative, this is what the top ten Jewish Home list looks like:

1. Naftali Bennet (leader)
2. Uri Ariel (leader of Tkuma)
3. Yinon Magal (or whoever Bennett picks; Yinon Magal has been promised a slot)
4. Ayelet Shaked (top-ranked woman is very likely to be Shaked)
5. top male candidate in primaries -- probably either Nissan Slomiansky or Eli Ben-Dahan?
6. another candidate of Bennett's choosing
7. whoever is next in the primaries -- either Slomiansky or Ben-Dahan, whoever's not in slot 5
8. second woman -- speculated to be Shuli Moalem
9. Zvulun Kalfa (2nd on Tkuma list is probably Kalfa)
10. member of JH's national committee -- probably party chairman Nir Orbach, but also running are Netanya chairman Daniel Bashari, along with lesser-known Amiad Taub and Hagit Moshe

I read the JH rules a bit differently.
1) The Tkuma members come separately, so the different reservations don't consider this and are then moved back, so the number 4 spot reserved for women will really be at number 5.
2) The chosen by the Bennet part only says that Bennet can put one person in every five spots by his choosing, but again this only for JH and not related to Tkuma, and doesn't limit the specific place beyond one in each five. Also, it is quite likely that Bennet doesn't use all of his theoretically available spots.

[danny]

I read the JH rules a bit differently.
1) The Tkuma members come separately, so the different reservations don't consider this and are then moved back, so the number 4 spot reserved for women will really be at number 5.

JPost disagrees with this, but I'll trust your reading of the rules in Hebrew over my reading of a journalistic account of them in English.

Jpost doesn't actually disagree, the just leave it vague and don't say what happens. The JH rulebook for the primaries make no mention of this either but since they are not part of this process, it makes more since the way I read it.

2) The chosen by the Bennet part only says that Bennet can put one person in every five spots by his choosing, but again this only for JH and not related to Tkuma, and doesn't limit the specific place beyond one in each five. Also, it is quite likely that Bennet doesn't use all of his theoretically available spots.

JPost seems to suggest it's just three slots (one in the first five, one in the second five, and one in the third), or alternatively that Bennet only intends to use three slots. But again, I'll trust you on this.

In this case I have no idea where Jpost is getting this from, because it certainly can't be from the official rulebook posted on their site.

[danny]

The Hadash convention today has authorized the party to unite with RAAM and BALAD.

[danny]

Forgive me for venting, some a--- on the wikipedia Israel election polling website removed the combined 'left-right' aggregate seat totals that some kind person had been posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

I know of the political views of the parties, but there are so many! Can some kind person here please tell me which Israeli party is one the left and which is one the right?

There is a good reason not to aggregate the seat totals, and that is because they can mean various things, and some parties don't identify with either side anyway. Aggregating is pretty pointless, especially if you try to shove parties into two groups.

[danny]

Forgive me for venting, some a--- on the wikipedia Israel election polling website removed the combined 'left-right' aggregate seat totals that some kind person had been posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

I know of the political views of the parties, but there are so many! Can some kind person here please tell me which Israeli party is one the left and which is one the right?

There is a good reason not to aggregate the seat totals, and that is because they can mean various things, and some parties don't identify with either side anyway. Aggregating is pretty pointless, especially if you try to shove parties into two groups.

While I'm sure that is the reason the aggregate totals were removed I disagree that it's pretty pointless if you're hoping to quickly see who is most likely to head a coalition government!

The aggregate totals do not give you that information, since parties from either "side" can join into both coalitions, and other parties wouldn't join either.

[danny]

The person who posted the aggregate numbers based it on whether the party was a member of the Likud coalition or the opposition in the last Knesset.

That's not really applicable, since there have been new parties created since 2013 and there is also one case of two parties running together one list (Labor-Hatnuah) where one party did not participate but the other did. So...that system can't work.

That, and it still doesn't tell you anything about the next government. Just because a party wasn't in the last likud government, doesn't mean it won't be in the next one, and vice versa.

[danny]

In some ridiculous news, all kinds of mistakes were found in the Likud primary results, with the corrected results moving Danny Dannon and Yariv Levin up into number 9 and 10, respectively, and overtaking Hanegbi that moves into number 12. Hotovely almost passed Dichter which would have moved her from number 26 into number 20. She closed the gap from 745 votes to just 55.

[danny]

It isn't a proper Israeli election without a bunch of parties splitting, uniting or being founded.

[danny]

The former commander of South Command, Yoav Galant, is joining Kulanu. Galant was nominated for Chief of Staff in 2011, but his appointment was controversially canceled by Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Cancelled for taking over some public lands for himself, something for which he apologised for today.

[danny]

Today's campaign was centred around gay marriage after a video came up where a bunch of People running in the Jewish Home primaries. No one supported it, although some supported an alternative of some kind that would give rights but wouldn't be called marriage, and one simply said that he would consider the issue and consult with people while keeping in mind the party he is in (Danny Dayan).

This caused an uproar and accusations of homophobia, although this shouldn't be surprising at all coming from JH.

This did cause a journalist to send a question from all the parties about whether they support gay marriage. Labour, Yesh Atid, and Meretz said they support it. Bennet went on TV and said that they support some rights for gay couples, but not marriage. Kulanu gave a non-answer saying people should live as they believe. Likud said that it hasn't yet formulated an opinion on the matter, a position which I don't expect to change until the election.

Individual Likud MK's have come out on both sides of the issue in the past, Regev Yeelon and Hanegbi support. I know Edelstein said he was against and there are probably others.

[danny]

Is there anyone opposed to secular marriage but in support of gay marriage?

Haven't checked but I doubt it.

[danny]

When are the JH primaries going to take place? I've seen 'January 5' in a lot of places but that obviously can't be right, since they'd be over in that case.

If you are wondering about the date for the primaries:

Likud: 31/12
Labour:13/1
Jewish Home: 14/1
Meretz: 19/1