A survey conducted on Monday for Maariv immediately after the announcement of early elections, indicates that Benjamin Netanyahu will be prime minister following the elections to the 21st Knesset. If the elections were held yesterday, the Likud under Netanyahu’s leadership would receive 30 seats, same as in the 20th Knesset elections. A list headed by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz would become the second largest political party with only 13 seats.
Of course, the 502 respondents of the Panel4All’s survey (sampling error of +-4.3%) were not aware that Gantz was rumored to be joining Adnina Bar Shalom’s new party Achi Israeli, a factor that would have likely changed their choice – in either direction. An earlier poll gave Gantz 16 seats, so he’s down 3.
According to the poll, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid would become the third largest party with 12 seats, compared to 11 in the current Knesset.
Habayit Hayehudi headed by Naftali Bennett receives 11 seats in the new poll, compared to 8 in the current Knesset.
The Zionist Union, headed by Avi Gabai, drops to a single-digit 9 seats, compared to 24 in the current Knesset,
United Torah Judaism, whose internal rift between Agudath Israel and Degel Hatorah over the IDF draft bill led to the Netanyahu coalition government’s collapse, receives 7 seats, a rise of a mandate from the previous elections.
Shas, headed by Aryeh Deri, hovers around the electoral threshold with only 4 Knesset seats, if that. Shas will likely lose its edge to a party headed by Deri’s arch-enemy Eli Yishai, as well as Adnina Bar Shalom’s new party. After all, she is the daughter of Rav Ovadia Yosef, founder of Shas.
Kulanu, headed by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, loses 4 seats to drop to 6 in the poll.
The same number of seats go to Meretz, headed by Tamar Zandberg, except that for them this marks a rise of one seat.
The party to be headed by Orly Levy-Abekasis, a former Avigdor Liberman MK, would also get 6 seats, as soon as they announce the name of this new party.
Israel Beiteinu, headed by former Defense Minister Liberman, would receive 5 seats, one less than in the current Knesset.
The Joint Arab List headed by Ayman Odeh, which may or may not keep all its member parties, receives 11 mandates (compared to 13 in the 2015 elections).
The survey shows that Netanyahu could maintain his right-wing coalition with 63 seats, with the potential of expanding his coalition with the party headed by Orly Levy-Abekasis and the Ganz party, whichever it may be.