Netanyahu traces the polls in the final stretch of the election campaign

In the final stretch of the campaign for the legislative of March 2, the third held in Israel in less than a year, the Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu has traced for the first time in the polls after being surpassed by the leader of the opposition, Benny Gantz. Neither the conservative alliance that supports the prime minister nor the center-left bloc that supports the former general adds, however, a sufficient majority to break the political blockade.

The average of the latest voting intention polls published on Thursday assigned the government Likud 33 of the 120 seats that make up the Kneset (Parliament) compared to 32 of the Blue and White centrist alliance led by Gantz, a former head of the Forces Armed for a little more than a year ago, he started his political career and who until now had led the polls with up to 36 deputies. On Friday, with the publication of the latest polls allowed by the electoral authority, both are tied to 33 deputies.

"Gantz seems to have fallen asleep on the laurels," says electoral analyst Daniel Kupervaser, "while Netanyahu has multiplied his media reactions." The leader of the most voted party can aspire to receive firstly the commission of the president of the State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, to try to forge a coalition government. A single seat of advantage can represent a relevant strategic superiority in the fragmented Israeli legislative chamber.

The announcement in the presence of Netanyahu of the peace plan of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, that favors the interests of Israel; the control of the recent war escalation with Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, and in particular the management of the coronavirus health crisis - through expeditious repatriations of nationals and border closures to foreigners - appear to be behind the comeback of the prime minister .

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His opposition rival, meanwhile, has had to correct the drift of his campaign on the fly, having turned right to try to capture nationalist votes with messages of support for the occupation of the West Bank and the annexation of Jewish settlements. and the Jordan valley.

Despite the electoral impulse gained by Netanyahu - which the Israeli Government runs uninterruptedly from a few days after the voting, none of the projections published foresees a majority of at least 61 seats for the current conservative coalition. Together with the seats of the two great Jewish ultra-Orthodox parties - Union for the Torah and Judaism (Ashkenazi) and Shas (Eastern or Sephardic) - and those of the extreme nationalist right of the Yamina alliance - headed by the Minister of Defense, Neftali Bennett—, the Likud wouldn't get more than 57 seats.

The technical tie between blocks that forced the successive repetition of the elections after the April and September 2019 legislative threats threatens to reproduce at the polls next Monday. The same polls cited predict 56 deputies for the sum obtained by the Blue and White list of Gantz, and their foreseeable allies in an investiture vote.

On the one hand, it would count on the vote of the joint candidacy made up of Labor, the centrist party Gesher and the leftist pacifism of Meretz. On the other, the Joint List coalition, consisting of four parties that concentrate the vote of the Israeli Arab minority, which represents a fifth of the population of Israel, could rise to power. The latter forces, in which Arab secular sectors and the former Israeli communist left also participate, will hardly become part of a Zionist cabinet, such as the one chaired by Gantz. After the previous elections, the Arab parties guaranteed external parliamentary support to dislodge Netanyahu, the head of Government who has held the position in the history of the Hebrew State.

The key to governance

The key to governance will continue in the hands of former Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose secular conservative party Israel Our House reaches seven seats in the polls. Lieberman has reiterated in campaign that he will not sustain an Executive led by the current Prime Minister.

Two weeks after the new electoral repetition, Netanyahu must appear before the Jerusalem court that will judge the three corruption cases in which he has been charged with bribery and fraud by Israel's attorney general. The official formalization of the accusations, after three years of investigations by the anti-corruption unit of the police, does not seem to have made a dent in the electoral expectations of the Likud leader.

Netanyahu has turned the polling trend around during the campaign. These assigned to the Blue and White Gantz alliance the favorite party condition. "Now it is he who runs in the lead and the one destined to win in the first place," underlines Yedioth Ahronoth Yuval Karni, "while Gantz shows a negative trend and tries to recover at the end of the campaign." For this, it seems to have launched to phagocyte votes from its center-left partners, so it may end up running out of allies in the Kneset to forge a coalition against Netanyahu.

Shadows of corruption and espionage on Gantz

The former general who led the Gaza war in 2014 now has to face the low blows of the political contest. The Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into the role of Benny Gantz in the bankruptcy of the Fifth Dimension technology company, which he presided over, for the damages caused to the Israeli police for breach of contract. The main owner of the company was the Russian oligarch Víktor Vekseleberg, close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Gantz, who denies all responsibility in the fraudulent bankruptcy, has also been surprised at the final stretch of the campaign with the publication of leaks from the intelligence services in which it is ensured that the old general's mobile was hacked by the espionage of They will go to blackmail you. A journalist close to Netanyahu has revealed that the phone contained sexual images of Gantz addressed to a woman with whom he had an extramarital relationship in the United States.