Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[Hnv1]

Herzog is in a pretty rough spot now. Liberman said he won't sit in a centre-left government hence trying to force some sort of unity government with Likud-Labour. Kachlon may dislike (like everybody who ever worked with him) Bibi but he and his base are essentialy Likud through and through. On top of that Shas\UTJ won't sit with Lapid unless the criminal sanctions of the draft law are lifted.

A Labour led centre-left-Haredi government is unlikelier than ever. Oh, and with their attempt to attract soft-right voters they are going to support Zoabi's disqualification (which the SCoJ will undo) and thus pissing off the joint Arab party.

Not the best of week for Labour. I assume they new tactic will be drain as much votes as the can from YA and Meretz so they can come to Bibi stronger when discussing a unity government.

As always the two parties least likely to get my vote are Likud and Labour

Yesh Atid?
There is a legitimate possibility Lieberman is left out of the next coalition entirely. Plus, the fact that most Shas voters are right wing didn't stop them from allying with labor when it suited them- perhaps the same is true of Kachlon. This of course doesn't mean a Herzog government is likely.

Like last time though, labor seems to be doing everything to turn off potential voters from the left.

Their campaign is toss so far. They should drink YA blood and attack Likud as an idea. But that's Livni for you, gonna miss out on being PM 3 times in 6 years...not even Peres managed that.

[Hnv1]

How likely is it that a "unity government" with Likud and Labor will be formed, Hnv1? Bibi would of course prefer a right-wing government. It depends on Lieberman and Kachlon. But wouldn't that be a nightmare scenario for Labor?

He would prefer a unity government. Bibi has shown that he doesn't want to be the most the extreme part of his coalition,  he'll definitely try to avoid an all right wing coalition.

Hmm. Interesting thought. It must've been really annoying for him that Uri Ariel used to plan new houses in J&S while he was negotiating with Abu Mazen. But overall, he's had more trouble in the last government - with Yesh Atid and with Livni - than in the government before, I thought.

For Bibi it wouldn't even be that bad, but a unity government might destroy Likud's popularity, although it will probably destroy Labor's popularity even more. That would almost certainly mean new elections within two years.

Why do you think a unity government would destroy Likud's popularity? It was in a unity government with Yesh Atid and it had no effect. It was in a unity government with Mofaz's Kadima and it had no effect. It was in a unity government with Barak's Labor and it had no effect. It was in a unity government under Sharon with Ben-Eliezer's Labor and it had no effect. It's been in a government with a party to its left more often than it's not been.

The last government was not a unity government, a unity government means some sort of power share. Bibi has all to gain from this, it will crush Herzog's public image and block this annoying pretender to the crown (Bennet) that will an all right coalition will demand the MoD and will gain a strong push for PMhood in the next election (Herzog after a unity government will be crushed)

[Hnv1]

All of Hadash Jewish voters add up to half a seat and if anything to will tilt meretz due to the union. BTW Burg also said he's against the union, still memeber of Hadash but against the union.

[Hnv1]

All of Hadash Jewish voters add up to half a seat and if anything to will tilt meretz due to the union. BTW Burg also said he's against the union, still memeber of Hadash but against the union.

Forget about Burg and Hadash then .
Have you seen the latest polls ?
We will be lucky to cross the threshhold .

A. Polls in Israel are sh**te.
B. Meretz bottom will be 5, all polls give them between 4-6 and I think they'll stay there. getting lower than 3.25% is unlikely
C. Burg isn't a leader of anything and post-zionists are usually very free minded (the idea matters not the person) and hardly vote Meretz anyway. If anything I think we'll see a small trend from Hadash to Meretz from Jews who don't like the nationalistic voice and Arabs who don't like the strong seperatism it brings.

[Hnv1]

Who would post-Zionists normally vote for if not Meretz?

The socialist oriented would vote Hadash, the more liberal one-statist 'we don't give a toss about economy" would vote Balad, a smaller portion (hoping for a growing one) would vote Meretz. Hadash pick more of those voters also because they have a jewish base with more voice, Balad hardly has any Jewish oriented party body.
I believe that with time we'll see that portion growing and in a future a split between the right and left section of the party.

[Hnv1]

Does Balad even try among the Jews, post-Zionist or not? Have you ever seen a Jew who voted for them?

Yes I know a few that do vote Balad, very fringe though.
Are Balad even trying? not hard that's sure, they have 'Bamat Balad' which is the only way they address jewish voters (in Hebrew) but can't say they're really trying to boost it. Hadash classical left view is more appealing than Pan-Arabism (if Balad actually stood up for what they say they do I guess they will be more popular). There are more NGO and cultural attempts like 'Zochrot' NGO and this book publisher I forgot its name which is identified with them. 
Balad's demographic of voters is correlating with Hadash's one so most of their energy goes on that frontier.

[Hnv1]

Let's get back to news not predictions:

Bibi states that he will not seek a unity government nor will he invite Herzog\Livni in. He did say JH are sure in partners. This move is more in the realm of getting more voters from JH\Liberman.

Former Minister Pyron states YA will favor Herzog over Bibi for PM

[Hnv1]

Well here are the results from ballot box last time around:
YA - 22%
Likud Beitenu - 20%
Labour - 19%
Meretz - 11%
Livni - 8%
JH - 7%
Kadima - 3%
Eretz Hadasha - 2%
rest are insignificant. fits pretty well with the demographics.

The whole precinct:
YA - 24.25%
Labour - 21.67%
Likud - 18.88%
Meretz - 10.6%
Livni - 8.45%
JH - 7.16%
Kadima - 2.21%
the rest are under the threshold

[Hnv1]

Well here are the results from ballot box last time around:
YA - 22%
Likud Beitenu - 20%
Labour - 19%
Meretz - 11%
Livni - 8%
JH - 7%
Kadima - 3%
Eretz Hadasha - 2%
rest are insignificant. fits pretty well with the demographics.

The whole precinct:
YA - 24.25%
Labour - 21.67%
Likud - 18.88%
Meretz - 10.6%
Livni - 8.45%
JH - 7.16%
Kadima - 2.21%
the rest are under the threshold

You didn't mention where this is, do you mean that it's your precinct?

Yeah, this is in a Carmel neighborhood in Haifa. What was your area like last time around?

[Hnv1]

Well a general Haifa poll conducted came out with:
Labour - 22
Likud - 22
Kachlon - 16
Lapid -15
Meretz - 8
JH - 8
Liberman - 6
United list - 4
Shas - 4
undecided - 11

Makes sense and fits with city's demographics  (though I think they underpolled the Arabic vote)

[Hnv1]

Haaretz runs an interesting poll showing 70% of Arab voters care more about economic matters than the conflict. Over 60% thinks the joint list should be a part of the coalition (28% say in any, 30% say only with Herzog, and 3% say only with Bibi). Most rate the performance of Arab MKs low.

Voting wise the Arab voters divide as such:
66.9% - Joint list
5.7% - Labour
4.3% - Meretz
2.4% - Likud
Liberman, Kachlon, Taleb A'snaa party - all 1.2%
the rest are marginal

The poll also indicates the % of voters will rise to 62.4%

[Hnv1]

Haaretz runs an interesting poll showing 70% of Arab voters care more about economic matters than the conflict. Over 60% thinks the joint list should be a part of the coalition (28% say in any, 30% say only with Herzog, and 3% say only with Bibi). Most rate the performance of Arab MKs low.

Voting wise the Arab voters divide as such:
66.9% - Joint list
5.7% - Labour
4.3% - Meretz
2.4% - Likud
Liberman, Kachlon, Taleb A'snaa party - all 1.2%
the rest are marginal

The poll also indicates the % of voters will rise to 62.4%

The more interesting finding of the poll is, that if only those Arabs who say they will vote for the Joint list do so, this will ammount to 12.4 seats. Given that, at least, a few Jews will vote for it as well, this is pretty much certain to give them 13 seats. And that is not even counting on any of the undecideds breaking their way - might get to 14. It would be interesting if the Joint List comes out the third largest slate to get in.

In fact, if one thinks about it, the 66.9% number is staggering. Without the Druze this would be close to 70%. Of those who have decided how to vote this is well over three quarters.  Israeli Arab community, that back in 1970s and even 1980s overwhelmingly voted for mainstream parties is incerasingly seceding into its own polity.

The overwhelmingly voted for mainstream parties due to Labour cheap tricks with the satellite parties and those collapsed by the 70s. The rest of the vote was a split between Mapam and the communists who became the largest group since the mid 70s. Since then the rise of Islamism and secular nationalism grew to the current point that Hadash are being overthrown in all their traditional strongholds.
What the future holds is never clear but I think it's clear their public wants them to take a part of the pie and influence not only as tokens on the Palestinian matter (which I'm all for), this will have very strong implication on Israeli politics I think more than any merger or friction between current parties.

[Hnv1]

A TV debate between all party leader part for Herzog, Bibi, Litzman is on tonight. So far I must say Bennet came sharpest, Kachlon the dullest, Yishai the smoggiest, and Liberman unimpressive.

[Hnv1]

So Bennett should benefit, and Lieberman/Kachlon will suffer?

How did Odeh/Galon/Deri/Lapid do?

Odeh was decent though I doubt how much it will really benefit him electorally (it will give him a better image with the Jewish public). Galon was okay though I think she could have been sharper and should have aimed her darts at Lapid. Lapid who I thought will shine was mediocre. Deri didn't impress me but I guess I'm not the type that he tried impressing

oh and Bennet completely off balanced Kachlon with his quotes on the Palestinian issue (Kachlon looked paniced).

[Hnv1]

Tamar Gozanski is a true FF and like most western-commies don't care much for the revolution and spend most of their time helping poor and oppressed people. Your remark regarding a correlation between opposing the Gaza war and supporting Hamas is beyond absurd.
The last HP in maki was probably Villner.

Again this a political cartography forum if we must argue our politics let's do it in the international discussion forum not in the informative election thread.

[Hnv1]

What was wrong with Villner?

Kept supporting the USSR to the bitter end, in the late 90s when those stagnant old gits in maki central committee finally acknowledged the crimes of Stalin he splintered away with the rest of the Stalinist to form the Israeli Communist Forum. His legislative record was fairly dull considering he spent 40 years in knesset.

Maybe HP is a bit too much but he was no FF

[Hnv1]

tl;dr the 5 pages of argument.

After the congress speech Likud bumped up a bit in polls.

[Hnv1]

So an unfortunate episode occurred yesterday:
Yesterday there was talk that ZU and Meretz were preparing to annul their surplus vote agreement. If it happened, ZU would have formed a new one with Yesh Atid, and Meretz will form one with the Joint List. Yesh Atid, ZU, Meretz support the idea, as well as Hadash. However Raam and Balad opposed it because they didn't want to be associated with a Zionist party. And Odeh was not able to drum up support within the list, so it didn't happen. If the right gets an extra seat this year, it may well be due to Raam and Balad's intransigence.

Since I don't know much about it other than what was reported n Haaretz, I was wondering if our resident Meretz activist, hnv1, could weigh in.

Odeh was for (and he came out in his facebook page saying he was binded) so was Tibi. What a shame, it means possible 2 seats gone (as YA also signed nothing). Raam could be swayed but Balad did their usual ruckus and due to the short time frame the agreement couldn't have been reached. Even president Abbas was said to have tried to weight in and influence (he's in good relations with Galon and personal friend with Barake and Tibi, Balad and the PA aren't best buds).

If I remember my constitutional law right it's even a dumber decision on their part considering they are the bigger faction so most likely the surplus will work for their advantage.

I fear this could be a fatal mistake, things are much tighter than they seem and like the 1992 elections those 2 seats could be crucial...I guess now all to hope for is low turnout in Likud strongholds and a swing toward JH (which is what Yediot are trying to build up).

A big rally by the V15 movement will take place on Saturday (I'm boycotting) night with the main spokesman to be former Mossad chief Meir Dagan. The strategy is to bring as many voters from Likud to Kachlon and Lapid and thus making a Bibi led government impossible (at least without rotation)

[Hnv1]

Do you think there will be any repercussions for the Joint List? It seems reminiscent of the Ohana scandal- popular leader is selected to appeal to a wider audience, only to have the backbenchers revolt when he does that. I can imagine a lot of Hadash activists (especially Jews) are incensed. I would be shocked if this costed them a mandate though.

Also, what do you mean by binded?

Galon attacked them this morning. The Jewish vote is not where the tilt will come from (they amount to hardly half a seat), according to a pool last week 40% of joint list voters are still not sure of their pick and 40% of those favor Meretz. I think we'll see a small Arab swing toward Meretz that will amount to a single seat

[Hnv1]

Noam Sheizaf is a good chap but like most of mekomit writers sometimes a bit delusional.
Meretz as a whole cannot join in with hadash, if anything in the form of this scenario happens I assume it will be that most of Meretz will be somewhat forced to join Labour and the left section will be forced to join force with Hadash. Very unlikely though

[Hnv1]

Netanyahu takes back the support he expressed in the Barr Ilan speech (09) in the 2 state solution and claims there will be no more withdrawals. The Likud is yet to publish a platform though.

It will be interesting to see if there will be a strong international backlash to this in the coming week, how will it effect the voter (I assume some more right wing Kachlon voters will be inclined to go home to the Likud), and whether Herzog will have a solid saying to counter him and maybe draw some more left Lapid voters.

[Hnv1]

What separates Meretz and Hadash is totally symbolic but both sides take their symbols very seriously.

As most human beings do?

I would say there are quite big difference but more between the Meretz voter and the Hadash voter.

[Hnv1]

Lapid claims he will not oppose the annulment of the criminal sanction in his draft statute, thus making possible the adding of Shas to a Labour coalition.
Liberman is looking pretty desperate lately.

Flattering polls for Labour lately, this Friday most papers will probably have the last big polls to see. I will wait with betting on the result till Saturday then.

[Hnv1]

Lapid claims he will not oppose the annulment of the criminal sanction in his draft statute, thus making possible the adding of Shas to a Labour coalition.
Liberman is looking pretty desperate lately.

Flattering polls for Labour lately, this Friday most papers will probably have the last big polls to see. I will wait with betting on the result till Saturday then.

So Lapid has caved one of his biggest achievements? I didn't think it was a good thing at the time when he forced the draft statute (I thought the backlash would be much more severe), but I always liked the idea and especially now since it seems to have worked pretty well.

I am generally not against the religious parties, but if you live in a country with a draft...then everyone should have to serve (with the exception of certain minority groups in countries like Israel which have a national religion/ethnicity).

Biggest achievements. one of the worse bills to have ever been made

[Hnv1]

So, the latest polls fairly consistently suggest that ZU may be about 3 seats ahead of Likud and that Kahlon will hold the ballance, as long as the "Arabs" are willing to endorse Herzog. In fact, it is gradually getting into the zone where Netanyahu may need not only Kachlon, but also every other rightwing and religious party (bar the person of Baruch Marzel) to form the government. It is hard to see YA joining Netanyahu after the recent experience, so it is either the narrow right wing or a very different government. So, some of the interesting questions now are

a) would Kahlon be willing to go into a narrow rightwing government with (almost) the entire right wing

b) would the "Arabs" be willing to offer sufficiently firm external support to a minority Labor/Livni government (in exchange, for, say, either Khenin or Tibi becoming the Knesset Speaker).

c) Would Likud be willing to go into a grand coalition WITHOUT Netanyahu being given the PM spot even for part of the term (e.g., if Labor insists on different Likud leadership as price of the rotation).

d) If the grand coalition is formed and "Arabs" are the largest opposition group in the Knesset, would they be allowed to become the official opposition?

d. Allowed? I don't think they need authorization. To be elected leader of the opposition you need to be voted by most MKs of the opposition if there's a grand coalition it will leave out Meretz, them and either of JH and the Haredi so it will be interesting to see what happens