MK Eli Avidar, who recently left the Yisrael Beytenu party and announced his new, "Free Israel," party, is in negotiations with the United Arab List (Ra'am) regarding a joint run for Knesset.
According to internal polls presented to Ra'am, Avidar would bring the party an additional two Knesset seats, mostly from both Jews and Arabs who have not voted in the past.
Ra'am has not ruled out a joint run with Avidar, but explained that they have not yet decided whether to add a Jewish candidate to the party list, journalist Mohammed Majadleh said.
Earlier this month, Avidar said his party would, "try to get a seat and a half to two seats of people who say that they will never vote for the parties of the bloc of change, because they did not keep their promises... We need to make sure they vote, because if they don't vote, our bloc won't form a government."
When asked whether he would be willing to merge his new party with an existing party, Avidar responded, "We will do everything to not lose votes, but I say once again, even in the polls we see that when I go with another party, I bring one seat, but some of the votes that would normally go with me will not vote [if I merge with another party]."
"What we will do - we will cause one and a half to two seats of people who say today, 'I'm not going to vote for any such party' because they didn't keep their word."