Israeli Parties Seek to Avoid a Third Identical Election Result

It was bad enough that the country has to suffer a third general election with a year’s time, but the thought of three nearly-identical dead heats appears to be too much to bear. As time runs out before the bell sounds for round three on March 2, internal politics has come to the fore as parties try to build alliances that could tip the scales. On the far left of the political spectrum, the venerable Labor party – once the dominant force and now struggling for survival – is formally pairing for the vote with the Meretz Party of like fortune. While it is inconceivable that any of the new alliances could win the election, amassing an extra seat here or there could create a king-maker role that could assure the “candidate of interest” rise or fall due to the support of the new bloc. Many long-time Meretz voters are angry that the party professing to be fairest of all to the Arab population has submitted a slate void of Arab Israelis in the realistic priority slots – those seats on the party list that could realistically be expected to become members of parliament. Underscoring the intense pressure to break the deadlock, it is noted that Labor head Amir Peretz resisted colleagues’ entreaties to make the same merger before both the April and September elections. On the right, a number of potential deals are fighting the Wednesday midnight deadline for submitting slates.