MK Shevach Stern from the Likud party on Sunday night surprised participants at an event by urging them to vote for MK Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party.
At the event, which protested the violent Palestinian Authority takeover of Area C in Judea and Samaria, Stern urged voters to support the smaller party, even at the expense of his own seat in the Knesset.
"If you have a dilemma in another ten days, regarding whether to give Likud its 38th seat, which would put me in the Knesset, or to give Religious Zionism its fifth seat, putting Orit Strock in the Knesset - vote for Orit Strock," he said.
Though recent polls do not show an immediate coalition for the Likud-led bloc, without the Religious Zionism party, any such coalition would be nigh impossible.
Last month, Likud signed a vote-sharing agreement with Religious Zionism. In a vote-sharing deal, if both parties cross the 3.25% electoral threshold, and one of the two parties is just short of the number of votes needed to receive an additional seat in the Knesset, that party receives the surplus votes from its partner – that is, the votes above and beyond those needed for the last seat the second party won go to the boosting the first party to an extra seat.