Yisrael Beytenu leader Lieberman on Tuesday called on the leaders of other opposition parties to join him in forming an electoral bloc that could unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the next elections, most likely to take place in March 2021.
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The opposition plans to present a bill to dissolve parliament next week. Regardless, the Knesset is slated to vote on the state budget on Dec. 23. Political insiders say the tensions between national unity government partners Likud and Blue and White are so great passing the budget would be impossible, and under Israeli law, if the Knesset fails to pass the state budget it automatically dissolves, triggering early elections.
According to Israeli media reports, Lieberman made the offer to offer to Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, who is also the opposition leader, as well as to Yamina head Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa'ar, who recently broke from Likud to for the New Hope party, with the explicit aim of challenging Netanyahu.
"The establishment of a liberal, Zionist coalition is the order of the day, especially in light of the growing cooperation between Netanyahu and representatives of the Islamic movement," Lieberman wrote, according to Channel 12 News.
"A bloc like this, if it is established, will be a real government alternative that will be able to replace Netanyahu's rule and propel a revolution for Israel's achievements – I call on you to join this initiative," he wrote.
Meanwhile, a Channel 12 News survey predicted Tuesday that were elections held at this time, Likud would maintain its lead winning 27 Knesset seats, with New Hope winning 21 seats, making it the second-largest faction in parliament.
The survey projected Yesh Atid would win 14 seats, followed by Yamina (13), Joint Arab List (11), ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism with 8 seats each, and Yisrael Beytenu, Blue and White, and Meretz, with six Knesset seats each.
As previous polls have shown, the Labor, Gesher, Habayit Hayehudi, and the far-Right Otzma Yehudit parties fail to pass the prerequisite four-Knesset-seat electoral threshold.
These results project that the right-wing bloc would win 56 mandates to the center-left's 37 seats. Lieberman and Sa'ar have 27 mandates between them and could choose to join either bloc, thus determining the makeup of the next government.
Asked who they believe is best suited for the role of the prime minister, 33% of the respondents told Channel 12 News that Netanyahu was the best man for the job, 18% named Sa'ar, 9% chose Bennett, 8% selected Lapid, and only 7% named Gantz.
Eighteen percent of respondents said none of these candidates should be prime minister, and 7% said they had no opinion on the matter.
The survey was conducted by the Midgam Polling Institute and included 501 respondents ages 18 and over. It has a statistical margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
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