The New Right has renewed negotiations with the National Union party Tuesday morning, and is close to signing an agreement for a joint run in the March 2nd Knesset election – despite an announcement Monday that the New Right would run independently.
The two sides reopened talks after the National Union and Jewish Home failed to reach a breakthrough in unity talks Monday, leading to the two factions trading accusations.
Amid the renewed talks between the New Right and the National Union, right-wing party leaders met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Tuesday morning at the Prime Minister’s Office.
The four small right-wing factions including the Jewish Home, Otzma Yehudit, New Right, and National Union have been under increasing pressure to form election alliances ahead of the March election and avoid a repeat of the two previous elections, in which tens of thousands of right-wing votes went to parties which failed to cross the electoral threshold.
In the April election, the New Right and Zehut parties failed to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold, despite receiving 138,598 and 118,031 votes respectively.
In the follow-up election, Otzma Yehudit ran independently, receiving 83,609 votes, coming up far short of the threshold.
Any agreements for joint tickets must be finalized before the deadline for filing Knesset lists on Wednesday night.
Currently, only the Jewish Home and Otzma Yehudit have finalized agreements for joint runs.
On Monday, the Jewish Home party’s central committee ratified an agreement signed between Jewish Home chairman Rafi Peretz and Otzma chief Itamar Ben-Gvir.