MK Eli Avidar, who announced on Tuesday the establishment of a new party, called the “Free Israel” party, claimed in an interview with Channel 12 News that despite the fact that there are six parties in the camp opposed to Netanyahu, his party will get votes from voters who refuse to vote for the other parties in the camp.
Avidar, previously a member of the Yisrael Beytenu Party, resigned from the government in February after relations between Avidar and the coalition soured, in part over the coalition’s failure to assign him a portfolio, leaving him as a minister without authority over any government office.
"Our party will try to get a seat and a half to two seats of people who say that they will never vote for the parties of the bloc of change, because they did not keep their promises. These people held protests on the streets for a year and a half, they wanted to see the law preventing a person with a criminal indictment from serving as Prime Minister, an investigation committee for the submarine affair, a law imposing limits on terms and transparency in the entire governmental process. None of these parties can be relevant for these voters. We need to make sure they vote, because if they don't vote, our bloc won't form a government," Avidar said on Tuesday.
He stated that the center and left camp will have to rely on the Joint List in order to form a government. "The public is entitled to be told the truth and I say this in the clearest way - we must rely on the Joint List even if we have 61 Knesset members without them. We must do that because there is no such thing as a government with 61 MKs that will last for a long time. We must rely on them. All those who tell stories to the public about 'statesmanlike', 'Zionist', 'centrist', it’s all nonsense, the public deserves to be told the truth."
"All the parties that talk about a statesmanlike right will sit with Netanyahu in one way or another. If someone wants to be Prime Minister here, they have to tell the public the truth. And this public is entitled to this truth because it does not believe us, the politicians. And the thing that needs to be said - there is no chance of establishing a government that does not rely on the Joint List because the haredim have chosen a side and it is impossible to move them from this position. All the stories of those parties that say that after the elections they will be able to bring in the haredi parties will not help. The haredi parties will come only when Netanyahu steps down due to a plea bargain or steps down altogether, period," he added.
To the question of whether he would be ready to merge with an existing party, Avidar replied, "We will do everything to not lose votes, but I say once again, even in the polls we see that when I go with another party, I bring one seat, but some of the votes that would normally go with me will not vote [if I merge with another party]. Those who didn't keep their word, who made videos before the last election and said that within three months they would pass the law preventing a person with a criminal indictment from forming a government and did nothing, delayed it and lied to their public, they are the ones who lost the trust of the voters. What we will do - we will cause one and a half to two seats of people who say today, 'I'm not going to vote for any such party' because they didn't keep their word."