I know I was writing about list mergers a month ago, and here I am doing it all again. Luckily there’s only one more week of this until the lists are filed and mergers are impossible, but until then there are plenty of rumours:
For the past week there have been continual low-level rumours that a Likud/Bayit Yehudi merger was still a possibility and could happen within days. Any such deal would HAVE to happen by the end of the week when the lists are supposed to be finalised. There have even been polls that suggest that the merged party wouldn’t lose seats in the merger. The big winners would be Benjamin Netanyahu, who’d almost assure that he’d remain as Prime Minister after the election, and Naftali Bennett, who’d be well-positioned to take over from Mr Netanyahu if and when he does eventually retire. It’d basically be the same as the Likud/Beiteinu deal last election, which is why both parties are suspicious of it. I suspect Likud in particular would be resistant to any such deal but would find it hard to defy Mr Netanyahu during an election campaign.
Tonight, there are possibly-linked rumours that the leadership of Bayit Yehudi is going to refuse to unify with the Tekuma party. Bayit Yehudi and Tekuma ran a joint list last election, and a month ago Tekuma was planning to leave the list and join up with Eli Yishai’s Yachad Ha’am Itanu faction. The party decided to keep its partnership with Naftali Bennett, who offered Tekuma better-placed candidates as an enticement to stay. But it’s Tekuma candidates Orit Struck and Bezalel Smotrich that have been the most controversial people on the joint list, perhaps damaging Bayit Yehudi’s appeal to more-moderate voters. If Bayit Yehudi decides to kick out Tekuma now, Tekuma will surely join Eli Yishai after all, dragging his party over the electoral threshold, with probably no cost to those people on the Bennett-side of the joint list. Of course, it would also leave the way clearer for a merged list with Likud.
Another joint list is that between the two Arab parties and Hadash, running as the ‘Joint List’. The list has said it won’t join any government, but might recommend Issac Herzog as Prime Minister in an attempt to get rid of Mr Netanyahu
One merger that now isn’t happening is Kulanu and Yesh Atid. It seems that there were serious talks but ultimately Moshe Kahlon announced that his party would run alone.
The final rumour is barely more than a whisper of a whisper: If Likud joins up with Bayit Yehudi, then Yesh Atid might join with the Zionist Camp (aka Labour) to create a centre-left counterweight list.
All of this will have to be sorted by the end of the week. Nothing could change or everything could change.
Oh, and one party seems to be out: Moshe Feiglin left Likud announcing he’d run in the election as head of a new party. As of today there is no party and Mr Feiglin organised his son’s wedding on election day. So it’s pretty safe to say that he’ll be too busy to run an election campaign.