New Election Poll Shows Lieberman Is Kingmaker – Again
An election poll released by Channel 12 on Friday shows little change from its previous one, with Avigdor Lieberman still looking like he will be the determining factor in who will be able to form a coalition.
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The poll released less than a month before Israel's second 2019 election shows Likud and Kahol Lavan maintaining their positions as the two largest parties in the Knesset, with each predicted to garner 30 seats. This is one seat more than Kahol Lavan was predicted to get in the channel's previous poll, but does not change the coalition math, as this seat comes at the expense of Labor-Gesher.
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The poll thus still shows the center-left bloc and right-wing bloc receiving 54 and 56 seats, respectively, with Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu receiving the remaining 10 seats that make up the Knesset. This would mean that Lieberman would again have the opportunity to deny Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the ability to form a coalition, as he did after April's election.
The poll also showed the Joint List alliance of Arab parties receiving 11 seats, with Yamina, the newly-rebranded right-wing merger under the leadership of Ayelet Shaked, receiving the same number of seats.
Along with Yisrael Beiteinu's 10 seats, the seats predicted to go to the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism and Shas parties – eight and seven, respectively – bring the right-wing bloc to 56 seats.
The poll shows the left-wing Democratic Israel joint slate getting seven seats, with Labor-Gesher receiving six.
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