What will the results look like on Tuesday night?
The pollsters will tell you that a lot depends on the undecideds. This is nonsense. The undecideds are almost all undecided only about which of two very similar parties to choose. The real unknown is how many votes each of the parties south of Labor will get.
The Likud-Lieberman bloc holds a lead of about six seats over the Kadima-Labor bloc, modulo certain assumptions about how the votes will distribute among the smaller parties. These assumptions are based on nothing with any statistical significance. Shas can get anywhere between 7 and 14, Agudah can get anywhere between 4 and 10, etc. As with every election, the surprises will come down at the bottom and will strongly impact the overall results. Keep your eyes posted especially on Chadash and Ichud Leumi, both of which are likely to make the pollsters look foolish.
A strong showing by the Ihu Haleumi and the Bayit Yehuda getting over the threshold is the guarantee that Bibi will given the task to form the government.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, while it is true that the RW bloc is now at 66 or so in the polls, some of the parties in this bloc are not really right-wing and can easily sit in a government with Livni. Shas definitely (but why that would happen now if it didn't happen in October is anyone's guess). elements in aguda/degel just go whereever they feel the power center of the country is at the time in question as long as it is not too anti-charedi. Lieberman who already was a coalition partner with Kadima when Kadima was even more left-wing than it is now. It is also easier to form a coalition with Lieberman and the Charedim together - while Libereman has adopted elements of Dash/Tsomet/Shinui/Derech Hashlishi platforms to his advantage - but he isn't running on the same "hatred" of charedim that Shinui (and even Tsomet to an extent) ran on. He also has plugged into some of the anti-Bibi platform of the Center Party RIP. but wothout the hatred as well. There is a difference between saying I want freedom of occupation so that shops can sell pig, to saying that charedi blodd suckers won't let me eat pig. ditto for allowing civil marriages. Only a strong religious-right wing bloc to the right of Likud making it clear that there is a TRUE right wing bloc majority in the Knesset, will give Bibi leverage with Lieberman to pull him out of the Kadima orbit.
I also wanted to add that there will 2 governments during the term of the next knesset and for the first time since the 1988-1992 knesset term we will have a good chance to see a change of Prime Minister due to coalition maneuvering within the knesset resulting in an MK from a different party being asked to form the second coalition. The results will be ripe for such a scenario.
ReplyDeleteIf Livni is asked to form the coalition and does so she won't be able to hold it for more than 18 months. If Bibi is asked, then I can see kadima/labor eventually selling out to Shas with another stinking maneuver (that might just work this time) and/or stealing some bottom feeders from Lieberman and forming a new narrow coalition at some point later on during the term.
Basically anything can happen.
I agree that HADASH could be a big surprise in this election. The Far Left is extremely frustrated and disillusioned, MERETZ is an exhausted party with the same old faces (I recall reading at the time of their last primaries that most of the party members were elderly people) and so it seems the time is ripe for post-Zionists to go all the way and vote for an anti-Zionist party. Don't forget that HADASH MK Dov Kheinan (sp?) got 30-some percent of the vote in Tel Aviv for mayor.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the National Union may get more than the 3-4 the polls are showing. They have an attractive list with some good anti-mamlachtim on the list. Bibi's stinking maneuver with Feiglin may push some of the religious who were impressed with the supposedly "Right-wing" cast of the Likud to go to the NU at the last moment.
I wouldn't be suprised if the Aleh Yarok-Nitzolei Shoa (pro-Marijuana plus Holocaust survivors) get in because they are so flaky and have commercials in such bad taste this may attract otherwise apathetic young people the same way the last time this group voted for Gil-Pensioners as a fad.
I am not worried that a big Lieberman win could lead to him supporting Livni for PM, that might not be as bad as a Bibi-Likud gov't. Of course, in a normal world, a strong Likud victory with a strong showing by the other Right-wing parties would be viewed as a mandate for real reform and changing the rules in our ongoing confrontation with the Arabs....however Bibi has already assured everyone he will form a gov't with the Left and carry out their policies, just in a more "cautious"-security-oriented way. Given this, maybe it would be better for Tzippi to be PM because then there wouldn't be the strong "Right-wing" gov't to give cover for destroying Judea/Samaria settlements which B. Hussein Obama is most likely to push for.
Thanks for reminding me. I want to go on record that Nitzolei Shoah im Bogrei Aleh Yarok is the goofiest and greatest party concept of all time. It could have started its life as a Steven Wright joke, worked its way up to a Woody Allen short story and eventually to a Jerzy Kosinski novel. But, instead it actually exists. I can't believe people want to abandon proportional representation.
ReplyDeletemany undecided could end up voting for some of the small parties out of frustration thus having an impact after all
ReplyDeleteAnd have you seen how "Nitzolei Shoah im Bogrei Aleh Yarok" is officially translated by the Central Elections Committee?
ReplyDelete"Holocaust Survivors with Mature Green Leaf"!