Election analyst JAMES MARLOW compiles this week polls based on several surveys conducted and commissioned for Israel’s news networks and newspapers.

Twenty-five separate political parties ran in the 2015 election but only ten received the minimum 3.25% threshold in order to enter the Knesset. The turnout in 2015 was 72.3% – a record high since 1999 and more than 4% higher than 2013.

Around 30 political parties will run for the twenty-first Knesset but must receive a minimum of 3.25% of the vote in order to gain entry.

ELECTION NEWS BRIEFS:

14. Election POLL 14-01-19     CLICK TO VIEW POLL

• Asked if Yesh Atid leader, Yair Lapid would give up his number one seat in place of former chief of staff Benny Gantz’s new party and a merger, Lapid replied: It’s not about ego. It’s about how to create real change. I will do everything in my power to bring about mergers, but I’m running for Prime Minister and I will lead Yesh Atid in the election

• Nearly 70% of attendees at the Likud retreat held in Eilat last weekend think that Prime Minister Netanyahu should stay in office even if he is charged with corruption. A poll at the event which drew about 3000 people found that 69.4% thought Netanyahu should not resign while 11.2% supported a referendum and 9.9% said he should resign

• Yesh Atid leader says he will not sit in a government led by Netanyahu if the Attorney General decides to indict him

• Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon also confirmed he would not sit in a government if Netanyahu was indicted after a hearing. He added in an interview last Sunday night that he wishes to continue serving as Finance Minister in the next government no matter who will become Prime Minister

• The family of Israeli Muslim woman Dima Tayeh, have cut all contact with her after she declared on Hadashot TV news that she would run in the Likud primaries as a candidate. In the interview she praised Netanyahu and defended the Nation-State Law, which critics say discriminates against Israel’s Arab minority. If elected, Dima Tayeh, from the village of Kafr Manda in the Galilee would be the first Arab Muslim lawmaker in the Likud party. She was among a group of Arab Israelis who toured the US to campaign against the BDS movement that seeks to boycott Israel. She said she has been a proud Likud member for 6 years

• Sources say Benny Gantz intends to launch his election campaign in two phases, first presenting his party and second presenting a bloc he intends to put together. Reports say he is interested in recruiting former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi who is likely to make an announcement that he is entering politics. The bloc would also include another former IDF Chief, Moshe Ya’alon and former Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni who was recently kicked out of the party. According to the source, Labour head Avi Gabbay would not be part of the bloc

• Former head of ministry for foreign affairs and former ambassador to the UN and the UK, Ron Prosor, is being pursued by the political parties of Yair Lapid, Avigdor Liberman and Benny Gantz

• Avi Gabbay was booed by the majority of members at the Labor convention last week, but he still managed to get his proposal passed which enables him to reserve the second, tenth and sixteenth slots on the party list for the upcoming primaries to be held on 12 February. However a third opposed the motion and Gil Hoffman of the Jerusalem Post suggested if it were a secret a ballot, it would probably have been defeated. Gabbay also told the convention that he can beat Netanyahu on 9 April, which received several laughs from the crowd

• Tzipi Livni who was fired by Avi Gabbay and then disbanded the Zionist Union party returning to the original name Labor, said that Gabbay is unfit to become Prime Minister. In any case it is unlikely to happen as Labour is only polling between 7-9 seats

• Among the political newcomers in the upcoming Knesset election is disability rights activist Alex Freedman, founder of the “disabled not half a person movement.” Freedman was central in campaigning for passage of the law that raised the monthly stipend for people with disabilities. A colleague confirmed that the movement is in talks with a major party to join them and hoped to close the deal next week.

By James Marlow