The departure of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked from Habayit Hayehudi to create a new party, named The New Right, has shown that the two parties are worth much more than they are united, according to a survey published Sunday in Makor Rishon.
The survey, conducted by Direct Polls, shows that the two parties most severely weakened by the establishment of The New Right party are the Likud and Habayit Hayehudi. According to the survey, if the elections were held today, Shaked and Bennett’s new party would win 14 seats,
The ruling party, Likud, would have dropped from 30 to only 25 Knesset seats, while the Religious Zionist party abandoned by the two mavericks would drop from 8 to 5 seats. Interestingly, three MKs have moved from Habayit Hayehudi to The New Right, showing clearly that Bennett and Shaked are less attractive to the religious right than to the Likud’s traditional, make kiddush on Shabbat morning then drive to a soccer game crowd.
Yisrael Beiteinu would retain its 5 seats and the entire right-wing bloc would garner 49 seats, which, together with Shas (5 seats), United Torah Judaism (7 seats), and Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu, who drops down from 10 to four seats, would give Netanyahu a 65-seat coalition.
However, should New Right and Habayit Hayehudi run as a combined list—a common election maneuver in Israeli politics—Bennett could easily demand both the Defense and Justice portfolios, as well as ministries for as many as three more ministries.
The survey also shows that the center-left camp would be getting only 43 seats, with former IDF chief Benny Gantz’s “Resilience to Israel” party picking up 15 seats. MK Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid would score only 10 Knesset seats (down from 11); the new “Gesher” party led by MK Orly Levi-Abekasis is slipping to four Knesset seats; the Zionist camp headed by Avi Gabbai would still by at nine seats, down from 24; Meretz keeps its 5 seats; and the Joint Arab List would be down to 12 seats, from 13.
The survey was conducted on Saturday night, among 628 participants representing a representative sample of the Israeli population. Sampling error: 4% +/-.