Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party would win the most seats in the Knesset if elections were held today, but he would most likely be unable to form a government, according to a poll released by Channel 12 on Sunday.
While the Likud would win with 25 seats, the next four biggest parties would be ones currently in the Opposition: Benny Gantz’s National Unity, which would win 21 seats; Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which would win 15; Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beytenu, which would win 14, and Yair Golan’s Democrats — a union of Labor and Meretz — which would win 11 seats, according to the poll.
Ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism would follow with 10 and eight seats respectively, followed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit with six seats.
Arab majority parties Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al rounded out the poll, receiving five seats each.
The survey, which was conducted before Gideon Sa’ar announced Sunday that he would be rejoining the government, found that his New Hope party, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, and the Arab nationalist Balad party would not cross the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent of the vote.
But while Netanyahu’s Likud would technically win the election, his right-wing, religious bloc would only amount to 49 seats in the Knesset, compared to the Opposition’s 66, which would include Ra’am but not Hadash-Ta’al. If Ra’am chose not to join the opposition’s government, the bloc would still win 61 seats, which is enough to form a coalition in the 120-seat Knesset.
If former prime minister Naftali Bennett returned to politics and ran in the next election, Likud would remain the largest party at 23 seats, with Bennett’s party coming in at 20 and Gantz’s at 13.
The Netanyahu-led bloc of Likud, Shas, UTJ and Otzma Yehudit would win even fewer seats in this scenario — just 46, while Bennett’s party along with Opposition factions Yesh Atid, Nationa Unity, The Democrats, Yisrael Beytenu would win 69 seats (or 64 without the Islamist Ra’am party).
As recent polls have shown, Netanyahu is still found by respondents to be better suited for the role of prime minister than Gantz or Lapid, but falls behind Bennett when the two are pitted against each other in that question.
Meanwhile, respondents were asked about reports that Netanyahu potentially firing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replacing him with Sa’ar.
The majority of respondents (64%) said that Gallant should remain defense minister, and he was even given a higher approval rating (58%) than Netanyahu (43%).
For now, Netanyahu has decided against replacing Gallant, sufficing with appointing Sa’ar as a minister without a portfolio on Sunday.