Prime Minister Yair Lapid is considering granting a reserved spot on the Yesh Atid party list to a member of the Labor or Meretz parties in a bid to convince the leaders of the two parties to run together in a joint list in the upcoming elections for the 25th Knesset, Channel 13 News reported.
Transportation Minister and Labor party chairwoman Merav Michaeli has refused appeals to run together with Meretz, despite the risk that one of the parties may not pass the electoral threshold.
The left-wing Haaretz newspaper ran an Op-Ed Monday warning that Michaeli's opposition to a joint run with Meretz may harm the center-left's chance at forming the next government.
According to the editorial, "Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties on Friday reached an agreement to run together for the Knesset - after a meeting between [MK] Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism), [MK] Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit), and opposition leader [MK] Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud), who served as a negotiator. This is how the camp works - that all of its parts are enlisted into the bloc victory. They overcome their ideological differences, they unite for the sake of victory in the elections, and they leave their internal differences of opinion to discussions around the government table."
The editorial continued, "At the same time, in the bloc of [interim Prime Minister] Yair Lapid, the head of the Labor party, Merav Michaeli, fortifies her opposition to the requested unity between the Labor party and Meretz. This is a dangerous gamble. If one of these two parties does not pass the electoral threshold - according to the polls, we cannot rule that possibility out - then the Netanyahu bloc is promised victory."