Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party is pressuring two smaller right-wing parties to drop out of the Sept. 17 national election, according to Israeli media reports. Neither of the two parties – Otzma Yehudit and Zehut – is expected to gain enough votes to enter the Knesset, and the Likud is seeking to prevent right-wing votes from being wasted.
Likud negotiator Natan Eshel has reportedly pressured Otzma Yehudit Party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir to drop out of the race, while Likud officials are said to have offered Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin an economy-related ministry position, to cover all of his campaign costs to date and legalize personal use of marijuana – one of Zehut's central campaign promises – if his party withdraws.
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The Otzma Yehudit and Zehut parties are unlikely to garner enough seats to enter the Knesset, according to polls published Monday on Channel 11 News. The same poll gave Likud 32 seats, and Blue and White 31.
However, so far neither party has expressed any intention of dropping out.
In a Facebook post, Feiglin wrote "I will not violate my assurance to voters," though "pressure is being applied" with "constant offers." In the same post, he announced a party conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday to "gather steam for [the] elections."
Ben-Gvir, in a statement following a meeting with Eshel, said that "without Otzma Yehudit there is no right-wing government and Netanyahu cannot form a government."
Each party running for the Knesset compiles a list of 120 potential Knesset members. The number of representatives of each party who actually wind up serving in the Knesset is based on the percentage of the vote the party receives in a Knesset election. The minimum electoral threshold required to enter the Knesset is 3.25% of the vote, meaning that the fewest MKs a given party can have in the Knesset is four. The rules for determining Knesset lists vary from party to party, but most of the major parties allow leaders to reserve spots for specific representatives or representatives of specific sectors such as women, minorities, and immigrants.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
