Over the last few elections Israelis have gotten used to the idea that the Likud and the Right do much better than what the polls predict. This time around the Likud and the Right didn’t ‘out-do’ the polls. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not pull a rabbit out of the hat and as a result we’re at an impasse. What’s surprising is that this is what the polls have been predicting since the last elections in April.
Why has the Likud vote decreased?
In previous elections the Likud benefitted from a last minute surge in voters and won comfortably. This time was different because voters wised up to Netanyahu’s ‘Gevalt’ campaign, in which Bibi expresses grave concern that the Right aren’t voting in sufficient numbers and goes on the offensive, often scaremongering about a surge in Arab voters. This method often takes a lot of votes away from other right-wing parties. But this time, whilst he managed to take a few seats from his right-wing allies, it was not enough.
What was remarkable on Election Day was that politicians across the spectrum were using this same tactic. As a result, voter turnout increased slightly overall, particularly in the Arab sector (the Joint List has two more seats than in April).
But the strategy of cannibalising right-wing votes backfired this time. Also, a significant number of people voted for Lieberman, who was not a solid right-wing candidate this time.
But with Lieberman you can never know for sure what he will do next. There was once a time when Lieberman had the slogan ‘my word is my bond’, but he has demonstrated his inconsistency enough times to make us doubt his sincerity. His platform has always been more or less the same, but what he actually does has not always closely followed that platform. For example, despite his anti-religious stance in the April election, in the past Lieberman was very pally with the ultra-Orthodox; Aryeh Deri was one of his best friends and Lieberman supported Moshe Lion, the candidate that the Haredi parties supported for Mayor of Jerusalem in 2018. But suddenly he’s turned around and is now fighting the battle for secularism in Israel? I don’t think he will join a coalition with the Haredi but if he did it wouldn’t be out of character.
The Right bloc
The other right-wing parties significantly under-performed too. Yamina (New Right) leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked should be in the Likud but they are despised by Bibi. A lot of people who were going to vote for the New Right, would have just gone to Likud or Lieberman because they are hawkish on diplomatic issues, but a little more liberal on social issues, and felt uneasy  voting for the smaller religious parties which form part of Yamina. For that position you have Likud or Yisrael Beitenu, and by joining up with Jewish Home again, Bennett and Shaked lost a little of what differentiates them as candidates.
The political map
I think we are pretty much frozen on the political map from April. It’s not that people shifted from Right to Left. Instead, Lieberman took his seats and refused to commit them to either bloc. You could say some of those people might still want Bibi to become prime minister because anyone who voted for Lieberman still has to be someone who wants the Right to win based on his platform. But when it comes to policy and ideology, Israel hasn’t changed, it is just the political game that is shifting.
Ever since Ehud Olmert resigned as prime minister, the political field has reorganised itself into the pro-Bibi camp on the Right and the anti-Bibi camp on the Centre and Left. Whomever is considered to be the most likely candidate to replace Netanyahu will end up leading that anti-Bibi camp. So we’ve had Kadima, and then Yesh Atid, then Labour/Zionist Union, and now Blue and White. The Labour Party has failed once again to convince voters that it is the party capable of dislodging Bibi. Even after the 2015 elections, the party lost its lustre very quickly when then party leader Issac Herzog tried but ultimately failed to join Netanyahu’s government. I think they have a chance of a comeback but given the nature of Israeli politics at the moment, there are more votes to be won in being a centrist party than a leftist party.
Netanyahu and Gantz
Netanyahu is currently hedging his bets. He would likely prefer not to join a unity government with Gantz but he’s going to keep the option open. The bottom line is Bibi wants to be prime minister for the next few years at a minimum, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get there, including sacrificing his right-wing allies that have kept him in power for over a decade. He will politically do anything in order to be prime minister again. Right now he is strategically positioning himself so that when Gantz says ‘no’ to him, he can claim that Gantz wants there to be a third election. The other option is that they agree to a rotation government, which I don’t believe Bibi really wants, but will likely go through with it if it’s on his own terms (i.e. if he’s first, in order to help with his indictment charges, but also he can always just call new elections before handing the reins over to Gantz). I can’t see Blue and White joining a coalition with Bibi, they would lose a lot of their credibility and Yair Lapid would likely veto it or leave the party.
For Likud, I doubt we’ll see any movements within the party over a possible coup. There are many people in the party who think they should be the next leader, but until we see Bibi fail in putting together a coalition, or he is indicted by the attorney general after the October hearing, then I can’t see anyone making the first moves to lodge him.
