Israel may very well face a fifth election campaign as next month's vote – the fourth in two years – could produce yet another political deadlock, a poll by Channel 12 News found Tuesday.
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Were elections held at this time, the poll projected Likud would win 29 Knesset seats, followed by Yesh Atid (18), New Hope (13), Yamina (10), the Joint Arab List (9), Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas (8), Ashkenazi Haredi party United Torah Judaism (7), Yisrael Beytenu (7), Labor (6), Religious Zionist Party (5), Meretz (4) and Blue and White (4).
Falling below the four-seat electoral threshold are the Economic party and the Arab Ra'am party.
These results project that even of Yamina joins the right-wing bloc – something its leader, Naftali Bennett, refuses to commit to – the bloc would still have only 59 mandates – two short of the 61 seats necessity to form a coalition.
If Bennett aligns with the Center-Left bloc, it would have 62 seats. However, to exclude the Joint Arab List, which could endorse a candidate from the bloc for the role of prime minister but is unlikely to join the government, this coalition would have to include Meretz – a tall order given the other potential partners.
Gauging approval ratings, the poll found that 32% of Israelis would like to see Benjamin Netanyahu in the role of prime minister. Twenty percent favored Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, 13% opted for New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar, 8% chose Bennett, 18% said none of the current candidates were right for the premiership, and 9% said they had no opinion on the matter.
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