Hamas War

Monday, February 9, 2015

Israeli Elections, 2015, 5775, Movement Within Blocs, Predictions/Pundit #3



Again, I'd like to say that I'm enjoying the ease of checking Israeli Election, 2015, 5775, polls on Jeremy's site, which is most helpful for getting a good view of voter opinion trends with minimal opinion.

As I see it there are a couple of steady (taking into account the accepted margin of error, which is generally 3.5-5%) blocs of Israeli voters debating between two parties.

One of the interesting and predictable voting blocs in the upcoming Israeli Elections consists of those who had voted for Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid, which was the "vote for a newbie" success story two years ago. This is a very predictable Israeli election phenomenon which we see in almost every Israeli Knesset Election results. There's almost always a new vaguely "Center" party which gets a surprisingly high amount of votes, even though it's list is generally full of people without any real political experience. Two years ago Lapid won twenty 20 seats. Now, most of the polls are showing that those twenty seats are being split between his party and the newbie Koolaid, oops Koolanu headed by the disgruntled former Likud MK and minister, Moshe Kahlon. It's not quite clear what he really stands for other than returning to power, making him a suitable recipient for the fickle voters who had formerly voted for Lapid, at least two years ago.

Another bloc of voters is those who are debating between Likud and Bayit Yehudi. In pretty much all of the polls, their grand total makes up just under forty 40 seats. They are the Center Right of the Israeli political spectrum. What makes it hard to decide for many is that they, the voters, are more to the Right, though they know that their politicians are more Center and even Left in the Likud. Even if the election results give that bloc a total of forty 40 Knesset seats, they still need another twenty plus 20+ to form a coalition government. And that's where things get difficult.

Who can be Bibi's coalition partners?

Even though Yair Lapid's first government experience ended badly, remember that he and super-fickle opportunists Tsipi Livni were booted out of the government forcing Bibi to announce new elections, he's acting more diplomatic/political this time, carefully hedging his bets and refusing to refuse sitting with anyone. He has tasted power and the comfort of a "Volvo" including its government paid driver and wants another chance, not voicing an opinion about who should be Prime Minister.

Kahlon is another power wannabe. He wouldn't have started this campaign if his aim wasn't to return to the cabinet.

None of the polls so far gives those four parties a comfortable sixty-plus 60+ total.

The next post, bli neder, in this series will discuss the religious/chareidi parties and Avigdor Lieberman, and how they can fit in the next Likud government.

Yes, I think it will be a Likud led government yet again. There are two main reasons for that.

  1. I don't think there are the potential numbers of predicted MKs willing to sit comfortably in a Herzog-Livni led Leftist government coalition. 
  2. Neither Herzog nor Livni is politically skilled and capable of orchestrating and controlling a government coalition. 
Of course, this entire post should be prefaced with IMHO, In my humble opinion....

6 comments:

Hadassa said...

Shalom!
Do I remember correctly that the last time Livni had the opportunity to form a coalition, she couldn't? Is she any more politically savvy today?

Batya said...

Hadassa, exactly! And the numbers she need are even more elusive today.

goyisherebbe said...

Livni also insults people and pushes them around and they don't like that, so they won't play in her sandbox. Herzog, besides being the unfortunate scion of a great family which has gone to seed, is a crook besides. That combo won't produce a government in a million years.

Batya said...

Goyish even Lapid had said he is not in Herzog's pocket.

Sammy Finkelman said...

>> None of the polls so far gives those four parties a comfortable sixty-plus 60+ total.

Which 4 parties?

Batya said...

The ones on the Left.