MK Mansour Abbas, chairman of the United Arab List, expressed confidence Tuesday night that despite all three major exit polls showing his party out of the next Knesset, the party will ultimately clear the electoral threshold once the votes are counted.
According to the exit polls conducted on behalf of Channel 11, Channel 12, and Channel 13 the United Arab List (Ra’am) is projected to fall below the 3.25% electoral threshold, leaving it out of the Knesset for the first time since its establishment more than two decades ago.
Nevertheless, Abbas told Kan Tuesday night that he expects UAL to outperform the exit polling.
“The voting rates in the Arab sector went up in the final two hours of voting, and those are UAL voters,” Abbas claimed.
“We will have to wait patiently, but in the end we’ll see the actual results and we’ll know that UAL will pass the electoral threshold. I regret nothing.”
UAL, which ran together with the Joint Arab List in the previous two elections, split off in January, in part over Abbas’ refusal to rule out supporting Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The party is aligned with the Southern Islamic Movement, and its electoral base consists primarily of Bedouin Arab voters.