Israeli Election

[M]

So what type of government will we see? Not enough seats for a Kadima-Labour coalition. Could Shinui or that new splinter party of Shinui join in?

As far as I know, Shiui doesn't have much chance entering Knesset at this point.

Exactly, Shinui is pretty much dead.


These are the complete numbers for all parties. A few new polls were just released today, therefore some minor differences to the numbers I posted earlier. Note that Israeli opinion polls work with seats and not percentages:

Kadima 33-37
Labour 17-21
Likud 12-17
Yisrael Beytenu 7-15
National Union + National Religious Party 8-12
Shas 8-12
Arab parties 7-9
United Torah Judaism 5-7
Meretz-Yachad 5-6
Tafnit 0-5
Ale Yarok 0-2
Gil 0-2
Greens 0-1
Shinui 0

I'm not familiar with all of those parties. Some were probably just newly founded.

Considering that territorial concessions to the Palestinians is part of Kadima's platform, a coalition with Likud or any other party of the far right seems rather unlikely. So, Kadima + Labour should be the logical outcome. But as BRTD pointed out, those two would need additional partners for a majority in the Knesset. While Likud is too hawkish/anti-Palestinian for Kadima's taste, something like Meretz-Yachad might be too dovish/"pro-Palestinian" for them. So, I guess we will have to wait and see.

Tafnit at 5? Where did you see this number?

[M]

Exit polls:

Kadima 29-32
Labor 20-22
Likud 10-12 (gasp!)
Shas 10-11
Yisrael Beitenu 12-14 (wow! Right-wing Russians)
Shas 10-11
UTJ 5-6
Meretz 5
Arab parties (Chadash, Balad, Ra'am) 7-8
Pensioners Party (golly!) 6-8
Greens just at the threshhold
Green Leaf (legalization of marijuana) just at the threshhold

Lots of surprises here: Kadima worse than expected but still very well. Labor somewhat better than expected. Likud was a disaster- this is the end of Netanyahu, at least for a few years (no politician ever really disappears in Israel- see Peres). I think we're looking at a Kadima-Labor-Meretz-Pensioners bloc here.

Which means the Right is in the doldrums and internally divided at just the wrong time; the religious parties are being rejected by the system for the first time since the early '50s; and if Likud's next leader is Silvan Shalom, it may even fold back into Kadima.

BTW, the pensioner's leader is a real live secret agent. Nearing 80, Rafi Eitan helped smuggle Jews out of Nazi occupied Europe, blew up a British radar station outside Haifa that was helping catch the smuggled immigrants, kidnapped Nazi criminal Eichmann in Argentina, and made a West German arms shipment to Egypt in the '60s disappear. His party can be safely assumed to be semi-socialist, but of the moderate-hawkish consensus Kadima represents,

[M]

Netanyahu's economic policies definitely hurt him, and Peretz was able to pull Sephardim who never would have voted for, say, Peres, Barak, or Vilnai. But he also lost votes on the right, to Israelis who felt that a vote for Likud was a cote for "who knows what?" after the surprising centrist premiership of Ariel Sharon.

Gustaf, "Hareidim" are the super-religious: throw rocks at cars on the sabbath; women must always wear long sleeves, long pants, and if married, cover their heads; and many of them are not thrilled with the existence of a non-Messianic state of Israel (some except it as a fact on the ground, but prefer that it be a rabbinic-led theocracy; i.e., democracy is a "Christian" or "post-Christian" system of government). UTJ is the Ashkenazic hareidi bloc, Shas the Sephardi.

The problem with Shas is that their chair, Eli Yishai, may a harsh anti-pullout statement prior to the elections. And whatever its social agenda, this will be the government of final borders. The flipside is that 86 year old Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the party's "spiritual leader", has seen the party's coffers drain after their first three years in the opposition after thirty in every government, Left or Right. He wants in at any cost, and if he decides he really doesn't like Yishai, he can destroy his career forever on a whim. Most Shasniks really want to see their previous chair, hyper-corrrupt Aryeh Deri, return anyway; Yishai is seen as a poor stand-in.

Another fill-in-the-gap party is Yisrael Beitenu, but they made a last minute anti-pullout statement as well. Avigdor Lieberman, the party chair, then immediately predicted that Olmert would drop his pro-pullout rhetoric post-election. This is either bad posturing or a total misreading of the situation. We'll see who changes his tune first.

The final potential combination: Kadima+Labor+Pensioners+UTJ=61, the bare minimum. The added attraction is that UTJ refuses to sit in government, so you don't have to give 'em ministries ambitious Kadimites and Laborites are eying, but since 1952 they've often gotten cushy Knesset position (such as the Finance Committee chairmanship) in exchange for their support. Plus,  they supported Sharon on Gaza disengagement (though the West Bank, which even Labor calls "Judea and Samaria", is much more historically Jewish). It's really up to their rabbis.

Meretz? I don't know. With four seats they don't actually make or break any coalition. They can be assumed to support the government in the Knesset, so including them in the government seems like a waste of a good ministry or two. But if Peretz wants Meretz, it'll probably happen.

Before anyone asks, the Arab parties are absolutely taboo for everyone in Israel. Israeli wonks speak of a "Jewish majority" of 61, and that's what Olmert needs.

So it's all about who cracks first. If no one does, we've got deadlock, and in Israel that means an unworkable coalition and, soon, new elections.

[M]

Ironically Labor's 20th seat holder is a Muslim Arab.

[M]

Ironically Labor's 20th seat holder is a Muslim Arab.

Right, he was a Druze. I confused him with Labor's seat 19, who IS Muslim.

Note that an ultra-Orthodox single faction is being formed between Shas and UTJ. This bloc would have 18 seats- one less than Labor. It could be excluded from a government that was even semi-pro-withdrawals by a Kadima-Labor-Pensioners-Beitenu bloc, at 64 seats.