According to the polls, neither the Zionist Spirit Party nor the Jewish Home Party is expected to pass the threshold with enough votes to get into the Knesset. Therefore, they are conducting quiet talks to examine the possibility of running together in the elections, reports the Hebrew-language Maariv.
According to the report, the heads of the parties, Ayelet Shaked and Yossi Brodny, are not in dialogue personally, but their teams are engaged in talks on an ongoing basis.
Brodny sets a number of conditions for a joint run. On the list of candidates to be submitted to the Knesset Elections Committee, he is insisting that two representatives of the Jewish Home Party be placed in the first four spots and a candidate agreeable to both parties in the fifth place. In addition, he wants the party financing unit allocated by the Knesset to belong to his party.
The demands do not end there: if the party passes the threshold and becomes part of the next government coalition, Jewish Home insists that Brodny be appointed a minister and another member of the party either a deputy minister or chairman of a Knesset committee, both of which are important positions.
If the union comes to fruition, the joint party will run in the elections with the letter B appearing on its ticket, which historically belongs to the Jewish Home and the National Religious Party (Mafdal).