
Polls held last week predicted that a party headed by Lapid would garner between 15 and 20 seats, were elections held now.
MKs Carmel Shama (Likud) and Ronit Tirosh (Kadima) recently restarted efforts to pass the bill into law, prodding Lapid to preemptively announce he was quitting journalism. The Knesset's Law, Constitution and Justice Committee is to discuss the bill Wednesday, and the bill may yet pass despite Lapid's move. However – he will not be affected by it, since it cannot be applied retroactively.
Lapid's father, the late Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, was also a journalist who became a politician at an advanced age. He headed the short-lived Shinui party, which ran on a virulently anti-hareidi platform and received 15 Knesset seats when it was at its apex, and took part in Ariel Sharon's government (but left it in 2004). The younger Lapid is also associated with an anti-hareidi posture.