JPost/Smith poll: Livni party worth only six seats

The Tzipi Livni Party would only be the third largest list on the Center-Left, trailing Labor and Yesh Atid, according to poll.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
TZIPI LIVNI announces the formation of her new party 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
TZIPI LIVNI announces the formation of her new party 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
The Tzipi Livni Party, which the former Kadima leader formed with great fanfare Tuesday, would win no more seats than United Torah Judaism, according to a Smith Research poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday for The Jerusalem Post and the Globes business daily.
The poll of 500 Israelis representing a sample of the adult population found that Livni's party would win six seats, much less than she envisioned when she declared herself the only possible alternative to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at a press conference Tuesday.
Livni's party swallowed up retiring Defense Minister Ehud Barak's Independence Party and took away seats from Yesh Atid and Labor. Livni's former Kadima party would not pass the electoral threshold.
But The Tzipi Livni Party, as her associates asked that it be called, would only be the third largest list on the Center-Left, trailing Labor, which would win 20 seats and Yesh Atid, which would win 10.
The poll found that Livni's party would take no seats away from the Center-Right bloc, which remained strong with 68 mandates, up three from the current Knesset.
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Click for full JPost coverage
Likud-Beytenu lost only one seat from 38 to 37 since a Smith poll taken two weeks ago, despite bad press Likud received following the election of a Knesset list that was portrayed by the Left as too far Right.
Predictions that the Likud would fain at the expense of Habayit Hayehudi did not prove correct. The religious Zionist party went up one seat from 10 to 11 since the November 15 Smith poll.
Shas would win 11 seats, Meretz five, Hadash four, Balad four, United Arab List-Ta'al three and renegade Shas MK Haim Amsalem's Am Shalem party three. The new Strong Israel party of former National Union MKs Arye Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari fell just short of crossing the two percent electoral threshold.