Israeli general election 2012

[danny]

The election will be on September 4, to see latest poll results see this thread.

Remember that left/right in Israel refers to hawkishness/dovishness, opinions about settlements, borders, Palestinians etc., and not economics.

The parties expected to pass the necessary 2% threshold to hold seats:

Likud: The current right wing governing party led by prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. The party generally performs stronger amongst poorer Jews who are not "religious", especially amongst immigrants from Arab countries and their descendants.
Expected mandates: about 30.

Labour: The main left wing party, was the governing party for Israel’s first 30 years, but has been losing support lately and hasn’t led a government since 2001 (has been part of several though). Its previous leader, Barak, left the party to form the Independence party last year together with 4 other MK’s. The party then elected former journalist Shelly Yechimovich and has since recovered in the polls. Its electorate has historically been stronger amongst the “elites” and wealthier Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of European origin).
Expected mandates: 15-20

Yisrael Beitenu: A right wing party led by Moldovan immigrant and current foreign minister, Avigdor “Ivet” Lieberman. The base of the party is immigrants from the USSR following the soviet collapse.
Expected mandates: 12-17

Kadima: The big centre party founded by Ariel Sharon after he left the Likud. Its leader is recently elected Shaul Mofaz, the former chief of staff in the IDF. The party is currently the largest in the Knesset, however polls show a big drop in the coming elections.
Expected mandates: 10-14

Future: A new party founded by Yair Lapid, a media personality and son of Tommy Lapid, the late leader of Shinui. The party should be similar to Shinui in being centrist and secularist.
Expected mandates: 10-14

Shas: A right wing, Haredi mizrachi party led interior minister Eli Yishai. The part is dominant with Haredi mizrachi Jews, and receives significant votes from traditionalist mizrachim.
Expected mandates: 7-11

United Torah Judaism (UTJ): The Haredi Ashkenazi party. The party doesn’t really have a leader as each Knesset member represents different religious sub groups and important votes get decided by rabbis rather than the Knesset members themselves.
Expected mandates: 5-6

Meretz: A far left party led by Zehava Galon. Its electorate is mostly amongst the Tel-Aviv bourgeois and the secular Ashkenazi rural areas (Moshavim and espescially Kibbutzim).
Expected mandates: 3-5

National Union + Jewish Home: Two far right religious parties with a focus on expanding and protecting settlements. Jewish Home is the more moderate party and currently in government and led by science minister Daniel Hershkowitz. National union is the more extreme party and contains Kahanists and will probably be changing leadership if they don’t. These two parties may run in a merged party or separately.
Expected mandates: 2-4 each if running separately.

United Arab List: The more Islamic oriented of the Arab parties, particularly strong amongst Bedouin.
Expected mandates: 3-4

Hadash: The communist party, which gets a big majority of its votes amongst Arabs, especially in the big Arab cities.
Expected mandates: 3-5

Balad: The more pan-Arabist Arab party historically close to the Syrian Baathists (a few weeks ago one of their Knesset members attended a pro Assad gathering).
Expected mandates: 2-3

A yet to be named party led by Deri- Aryeh Deri used to be the leader of shas until he was convicted and sent to jail for corruption. Now that he is free he says he wants to found his own party (Shas don’t want him back).
Expected mandates: 2-4

As usual, other than these parties there will be very many other parties on the ballot (there were 33 total in the last election) including the Barak founded Labour breakoff, the Independence party, but none of these are expected to pass the 2% threshold.

[danny]

If these results pan out... whats the most likely coalition goverment going to look like? who's in, who's out.

Good improvement for Labour from what i can see, probably mostly coming off the decline of Kadima. Is Israel going back to a left (labour) vs right (likud) knesset?

That would be up to Bibi, hard to say what he would choose.

Likud and Labour look to be the two largest parties right now but they still won't be close to half the mandates combined and they are not really directly competing with one another.

[danny]

If these results pan out... whats the most likely coalition goverment going to look like? who's in, who's out.

Good improvement for Labour from what i can see, probably mostly coming off the decline of Kadima. Is Israel going back to a left (labour) vs right (likud) knesset?

That would be up to Bibi, hard to say what he would choose.

Well, how much of a choice would he have? Would a Likud/YB/Kadima/Lapid government sans the religious be possible (not merely numerically, which seems inevitable, but also ideologically)? If yes, of course, he'd have choice.

Ideologically this coalition should be fine from all the coalition parties. YB already wanted Kadima instead of the Haredi in the last coalition and Lapid has clearly said that he wants to be in the next coalition. That leaves Kadima, which didn't enter the last coalition because they won too many votes which Livni thought should be enough for a rotational prime minister, with the state Kadima is in this shouldn't be a problem. Also Mofaz wanted to enter the previous coalition anyway so I don't see him objecting to any coalition partners now.

[danny]

Lapid hasn't revealed yet who will be on his list.

I believe Kadima and especially Lapid would follow netanyahu on this issue. Lapid because he is easily replaceable with the Haredi parties, which is the last thing he wants. As for Kadima, I'm not convinced Mofaz as prime minister would be very different himself.

[danny]

Is Yachimovich still pandering to the settlers, or has she realized how dumb that was yet?  And has she uttered a single word about peace since she became leader?  Also, any word (besides Noam Shalit) on potential or confirmed candidates on Labor's Knesset list, besides current MK's?  I'm interested to see whether it'll be mainly old-timers who lost their seats in 2009 or new faces, and if it's the latter, whether it'll be mainly the social protest type or the peace type, or both. 

Yechimovich didn't pander to settlers, that really would be dumb, as they wouldn't vote for her. What she does want to do is not sound to left wing so that she can take of votes from the centre parties.

[danny]

Regarding the lists, there is a deadline on July 19 for parties to submit the names. Democratic parties will have primaries so we will know their lists whenever those are done. For the rest of the parties it is up to them if they want to say anything before the deadline.

[danny]

Yes, I was surprised by this. The election looked like a done deal.

I don't know that much about Israeli politics but this looks pretty good for everyone except Kadima and the religious parties. Likud no longer has to rely on the really extreme little parties and Labor gets a year as official opposition to get its act together, unite the anti-Likud vote, and not get imminent destroyed in an election. I bet Lieberman is happy too. I have no idea what Kadima could gain from this.

Kadima has most to gain by this since they were going to get destroyed in the election. Labour are the biggest losers (maybe along with the Haredim) as they were up in the polls and would become the second party, and they might have to wait a year and a half.