Bennett and Sa'ar
Bennett and Sa'arMiriam Alster/Flash 90

Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett and New Hope chairman Gideon Sa'ar signed a surplus-vote agreement Monday which would allow one party to share its 'surplus votes' with the other to allow it to gain an extra Knesset seat or overcome the electoral threshold in the event one party fails to gather enough votes to make it into the next Knesset.

Earlier, the Jewish Home Party announced that it was in talks to rejoin Yamina and run with it in the Knesset elections.

"We are negotiating with Yamina to run together and restore unity to religious Zionism. Talks with Bennett are being conducted in a good spirit, with the intention of uniting the ranks and working for the people of Israel, land of Israel and the Torah of Israel as before. We hope to close the deal with Bennett soon," the party said in a statement.

Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz added, "We are happy with the contacts with Yamina and former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett. As I always said, religious Zionism should unite and run together. There is no room for splits. Hopefully in the coming days there will be a deal."

The Yamina party did not respond to the reports, and the National Union also said that it did not recognize such contacts.

Channel 12 News reported last night that there were difficulties in contacts between Bezalel Smotrich and Naftali Bennett over Smotrich's demand that the National Union receive four places in the first eight on the party list.

Smotrich also demanded a commitment that Bennett will prefer a right-wing government while Bennett prefers to make such a decision only after the election.