For the first time since the start of the campaign for the April 9 Knesset election, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is polling higher than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when it comes to fitness for office, although the latter is still poised to win the election.
In a Channel 13 News poll from Thursday, 42% of Israelis said former IDF chief Gantz was more qualified than Netanyahu to serve as prime minister, compared to 41% who said that the four-time prime minister had the edge.
The results are a statistical dead heat, but may indicate voters are increasingly likely to view Gantz as a viable alternative to Netanyahu.
The poll was conducted by Panel Project HaMidgam with a sample of 734 respondents. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.
When it comes to party preferences, the poll showed Netanyahu's camp is clearly more popular, despite the 29 seats projected for the Likud, compared to 31 for Blue and White.
According to the poll, Likud and its allies in the Knesset are projected to win 64 seats, compared to 56 seats for the Center-Left.
If Gantz's Blue and White becomes the largest party by a significant margin, it is likely that President Reuven Rivlin would let it have the first shot at forming a government. However, it is extremely unlikely that right-wing or haredi parties would join a coalition under Blue and White, so the party would probably be unlikely to win a vote of confidence.
In that scenario, Rivlin would most likely task Likud with forming a government.
Asked to assess Netanyahu's controversial decision to green light the procurement of submarines and other naval vessels from Germany several years ago, 48% of respondents said they thought the prime minister had a personal interest in completing the deal, compared to 25% who said they believed he had acted purely on professional grounds. Another 27% said they had no opinion on the matter.
The submarines acquisition deal has become the subject of a criminal investigation known as Case 3,000. The investigation centers on possible conflicts of interests surrounding Israel's 2015 decision to procure three submarines and other naval vessels from the German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp.
Police believe some officials involved in the procurement negotiations tainted the bidding process in a way that favored ThyssenKrupp and themselves. The illicit action allegedly involved bribery, fraud and other offenses. Netanyahu was cleared of any wrongdoing and was never considered a suspect in the case.
