The Likud is poised to win this September’s Knesset election, a new poll shows, but still has no clear path to forming a government.
A new poll, conducted by the Midgam agency on behalf of Channel 12 and published Tuesday afternoon shows the Likud winning 30 seats, five less than it won in April, but more than its rival, the center-left Blue and White party, which is projected to fall from 35 seats to just 29.
According to the survey, the Yamina party – formerly known as the United Right – would win 11 seats, as would the Arab Joint List party, which won a total of 10 seats in April on two separate tickets. The Yamina party’s constituent factions currently have five seats.
Avidgor Liberman’s secular right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party would double its strength, rising from five to 10 seats, while the haredi parties would lose a total of one seat, with United Torah Judaism winning eight seats, compared to seven for Shas.
On the left, the joint ticket of the Labor and Gesher parties would win seven seats, an increase of one mandate over Labor’s current six seats. The Democratic Camp, a union of the far-left Meretz party with Ehud Barak’s Israel Democratic Party would also win seven seats. Meretz currently has four seats in the Knesset.
While the right-wing – religious bloc would win a clear majority of 66 seats, compared to 54 for the left-wing – Arab bloc, Yisrael Beytenu has vowed to block the formation of a narrow rightist government. That leaves the right-wing bloc with just 56 seats, five short of a majority.
Tuesday’s poll results are nearly identical to those of the previous Midgam poll, released last Monday. The only difference in seat allocation in this week’s poll is the rise of one seat for UTJ, from seven in last week’s to eight in today’s poll, with a corresponding drop of one seat for the Democratic Camp, from eight in last week’s poll to seven today.
The two smaller right-wing parties, Zehut and Otzma Yehudit, gained ground this week, yet remain below the 3.25% minimum threshold.
In last week’s Midgam poll, both parties received 2.0% of the vote, while in Tuesday’s poll, Zehut rose to 2.9% and Otzma to 2.7%.