Eli Yishai
Eli YishaiYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

"Yachad" party chairman Eli Yishai on Friday told the haredi Kikar Hashabbat news site that Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) vetoed the inclusion of Yishai as a minister in the next government.

In an interview with Kikar Hashabbat, Yishai said, "For my entire life, I've been following Torah's opinion... We have our path, we have competent rabbis."

He also said that he believes Yachad will make it into the next Knesset, even though the party is running alone instead of uniting with the other small right-wing parties.

"I believe that with G-d's help we will have huge success. The public misses us," he said. "The negotiations with the Jewish Home were a few days ago, it's clear that it won't work. Now there were efforts, we thought maybe at the last second we could unite and I would be ninth on a joint list. The suggestion was put to Rabbi Mazuz, it didn't work, and I wish them much success."

"Aryeh Deri told the Prime Minister that he opposes my appointment to the position of minister. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime MInister, told me this explicitly, in a phone call. [He said] that Aryeh Deri vetoed it. IN that same phone call there were two others, it was a conference call with four people. The Prime Minister was talking to all of us, and told all of us that Aryeh Deri had vetoed it."

Deri has firmly denied the report.