MK Bezalel Smotrich's announcement that the National Union, the religious Zionist party he heads, would be running separately in the upcoming election caught Yamina leader Naftali Bennett by surprise.
Thus far, Bennett thought – and possibly still thinks – that Smotrich was just flexing his muscles and would eventually agree to a joint ticket.
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Even though Bennett isn't doing badly in the polls, the misadventure of his former New Right list has left scars that probably won't go away. Bennett needs an insurance policy that will ensure he makes it over the minimum electoral threshold, and thought he could depend on religious Zionist voters. But Smotrich's departure puts those plans in danger.
Now Bennett will have to decide whether to give up on Smotrich once and for all and run alone, or try to form a joint ticket with some other party that will give him the assurances he so desires.
Bennett isn't the only one in this predicament. The high electoral threshold (3.25%) poses a challenge for all newcomers, and even some established parties, who are liable to be beguiled by the polls, only to find out at the last minute that they'll only be seeing the inside of the Knesset on their TV screens.
Shelah's correction
Polls that looked as the possibility of Smotrich running on his own indicated that his religious Zionist party would win four seats, barely above the minimum threshold.
Smotrich is sure that number will increase, and is depending on a precedent that saw his party make it in while Bennet's New Right failed to, but that is no guarantee the same thing will happen this time. To give himself the greatest possible guarantee he will make it over the 3.25%, Smotrich will need to form his own partnerships with Habayit Hayehudi and Otzma Yehudit.
After all the party splits and formation of new parties, the Left is also calling for unification. No poll shows Ofer Shelah's party making it past the minimum threshold, and he was the first to call for immediate negotiations to bring the left-wing camp into line. Remember, Shelah is the one who split from Yesh Atid and put himself at risk. His calls for unification are a correction.
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Ya'alon also splits, then calls for unity
Like Shelah, Moshe Ya'alon of Telem announced this week he was leaving Yesh Atid, which did not hinder him from announcing at a press conference that it was time to unify. According to the polls, Ya'alon's party won't pass the minimum threshold, either, and a joint ticket is his only chance of serving in the next Knesset.
The rest of the candidates from the left-wing bloc, like former Treasury official Yaron Zelekha and former Mossad head Danny Yatom, who have announced they are forming their own parties, will need to find an arrangement that will bring them over the threshold, or they might wind up dropping out of the race. If they run separately, the rest of the camp will not take it well.
Will the Arab List remain 'joint'?
The Arab sector realized the need to run on a joint ticket long ago. When Avigdor Lieberman raised the minimum threshold in 2014, ahead of the 2015 election, all the Arab parties from Hadash to Balad banded together in a joint ticket that proved itself successful and has gained more votes from one election to the next.
Despite serious disputes between some of the list's parties and the Ra'am party, headed by Mansour Abbas, the prevailing belief is that the Joint Arab List will remain just that. This is mostly because a drop in the polls could keep one or two of the four parties on the list out of the Knesset, which they think would hurt Arab representation as a whole.
