16 Elul 5779
16 September 2019
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1 Day Until The Election
TODAY’S BLOG:
ELECTION PREDICTIONS!
There are numerous significant events taking place all around us today that may have enormous impact on Israel–foremost of which is the apparently firm evidence that Iran acting through its proxies bombed the Saudi oil fields–leading President Trump to remark that the U.S. is “locked and loaded.”
However, on the local level here in Israel, the news is all about the election tomorrow.
To tell you the truth, your humble servant has not been the greatest of prognosticators. We were off in 2015 and off again back in April. Having said that, there is no shortage of optimism here that we will get it right this time.
As we have written recently, everything this time around is going to depend on turnout–and it would not take much to turn your humble servant’s predictions below topsy turvy. Simply put, the lower the turnout, the fewer votes it will take to reach the 3.25% threshold necessary for a party to receive the minimum 4 seats of representation in the Knesset. Recent reports have suggested that the turnout will be down from April.
All the major and minor candidates spent yesterday beating the bushes for votes by denouncing those that they feel are trying to siphon votes from them.
Horowitz of left-wing Democratic Camp cried that his party may not make it into the Knesset because its votes are being stolen Gantz and his Blue and White Party.
Peretz of left-wing Labor made exactly the same point as Horowitz.
Shaked of the right-wing party Yamina gave a fiery speech in which she accused Netanyahu and Likud of doing everything they can to steal Yamina’s votes. More than this, she wondered why Netanyahu is attacking her party and not those on the left. Moreover, she demanded that Netanyahu come clean about the Trump Peace Plan and show Israelis the map that will be proposed. Even more than this, she accused Netanyahu’s inner circle of hating her.
Meanwhile more mud was slung in all directions:
*There were unconfirmed reports that Iran has broken in to Benny Gantz’s phone and have numerous conversations between Gantz and “his mistress.”
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*Netanyahu claimed that Israeli-Arabs “stole” the April election by stuffing ballot boxes with fake votes. Netanyahu is probably correct in this assertion.
And on and on.
So . . . drum roll . . . with no further ado, here are your humble servant’s fearless predictions about what will happen tomorrow. Below I list the parties and the number of seats that each will win:
Likud (Netanyahu) 34
Blue and White (Gantz) 32
Arab List 12
Yisrael Beiteinu (Lieberman) 8
Yamina (Shaked) 8
United Torah Judaism (orthodox Ashkenazi) 8
Shas (orthodox Sephardic) 7
Democratic Union (Horowitz and Barak) 4
Labor (Peretz) 4
Otzma 4 (Ben-Gvir)
In sum, this prediction is that the so-called “right-wing” block (Likud, Yamina, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Otzma) will take 61 seats.
I base this prediction on my wholly unscientific intuition. To me, it seemed that up until about a week ago, Blue and White was in command and headed for top spot in the results. However, in the last week, there seems to have been a definite surge of support for Likud.
I hope that this intuition is not just wishful thinking.
Who will your humble servant vote for?
Believe it or not, I am still undecided, but I can tell you that it will be for either Yamina or Otzma.
Tomorrow, we will provide continuous election updates all day.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.