The initiative, reported by Makor Rishon newspaper, is said to be based on polls that predict a much better showing for such a unified coalition of parties than they would achieve separately. The polls indicate that between 30 and 32 seats would go to such a party. The polls also show that such a party would take votes away from Kadima, reducing Prime Minister Ariel’s Sharon’s Party to 34 to 36 seats from the 40 to 42 now projected. The poll is seen by some in the national camp as indication of the one move that can prevent Sharon from entering the next Knesset as the sole dominant force.
The report claims that the proposal is being seriously considered by senior Likud officials and is gaining steam among NRP officials as well. At the NRP meeting last week, the party’s current MKs, joined enthusiastically by former MK Yigal Bibi, authorized party chairman Zevulun Orlev to explore the possibilities of setting up a right-center bloc ahead of the elections.
There is reportedly much concern within the NRP that the party will not receive enough votes alone to pass the threshold for representation in the 17th Knesset.
Russian party Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, broke with the National Union during the 16th Knesset term and has been courting the Likud since the announcement of early elections.
A recent poll reported on Army Radio found that 38 percent of Russian immigrants intend to vote for Kadima, while 25 percent will vote for Lieberman's party and just 12 percent for the Likud. Lieberman said the poll was the work of “Kadima spin-doctors” and his party expects to get much more support. Either way, the Likud, previously the recipient of a large percentage of the Russian vote, is looking for ways to win it back.
Lieberman was formerly a member of the Likud party. He resigned in 1997 in protest of Netanyahu’s withdrawal from most of Hevron. Though Yisrael Beiteinu is not averse to some territorial compromise and, in fact, suggests ceding densely populated Israeli-Arab areas to the Palestinian Authority, his party was not a member of the Sharon government at any point leading up to the Disengagement.
Lieberman says the main obstacle to the merging of the parties is a Likud guideline requiring two-thirds of the party’s Central Committee to approve a merger.