When most Israeli voters go to the polls on Tuesday, they will have in mind the leader of their party of choice.
Undecided voters will be considering whether to cast a ballot for Benjamin Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett, for Yair Lapid or Gideon Sa’ar, or for Benny Gantz or Merav Michaeli.
But the truth is that with the Israeli system, the voters are not choosing the front of the list but the very end.
There are more undecided voters in this election than ever, according to the pollsters. For undecided voters to make a smart choice, they should look at the final polls and then check out the list of candidates of the parties they are considering.
As a service to those undecided voters, here are the candidates on the cusp, based on the final surveys taken by five different pollsters.
Likud
Poll position: 29-32
29 – Patin Mula, Druze deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office; 30 – MK May Golan; 31 – MK Tali Ploskov; 32 – MK Uzi Dayan; 33 – MK Ariel Kallner, formed the Knesset caucus against BDS and antisemitism; 34 – MK Osnat Mark, attorney and activist against the legal establishment
Yesh Atid
Poll position: 18-20
18 – Tania Mazarsky, deputy mayor and director of Leumit Health Services Medical Centers in Carmiel; 19 – Beersheba City Councilwoman Yasmin Sax Fridman; 20 – independent workers activist Inbar Bezek; 21 – MK Moshe Tur-Paz, Philadelphia-born educator whose parents are British
Yamina
Poll position 8-10
8 – Former MK Idit Silman; 9 – deaf activist Shirley Pinto; 10 – Shai Maimon, terrorism victim, outpost resident and activist for both; 11 – Yomtob Kalfon, French-speaking lawyer
New Hope
Poll position 7-10
7 – Eilat Mayor Meir Yitzhak Halevi; 8 – Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Zvi Hauser; 9 – Former Likud MK Michal Shir; 10 – Former Blue and White MK Hila Shay Vazan; 11 – Dani Dayan, former consul-general in New York and Yesha Council chairman
Joint List
Poll position 7-10
7 - MK Heba Yazbak (Balad); 8 – Prof. Yousef Jabareen, MK (Hadash) and Georgetown educated lawyer; 9 - Bedouin former MK Joumah Azbarga (Balad); 10 - MK Sondos Saleh (Ta'al)
Yisrael Beytenu
Poll position 7-9
7 - MK Alex Kushnir; 8 - Yossi Shein, Head of Tel Aviv University's School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs; 9 - attorney Limor Magen Telem
Shas
Poll position 7-9
7 - MK Yinon Azoulay; 8 - MK and former Beit Shemesh mayor Moshe Abutbul; 9 - MK Uriel Busso; 10 - MK Yosef Taieb, representing French immigrants
United Torah Judaism
Poll position 6-7
6 - MK Israel Eichler; 7 – MK Yitzhak Pindrus, specializes in helping immigrants from English-speaking countries, got in hot water for calling IDF converts shiksas
Labor
Poll position 5-6
5 – Efrat Rayten, child TV star who became contract lawyer; 6 – Former Blue and White MK Ram Shefa; 7 – Controversial Arab documentary filmmaker Ibtisam Mara’ana
Blue and White
Poll position 4-5
5 – Tourism Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen; 6 – Agriculture Minister Alon Schuster, former mayor of Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council in the Gaza periphery
Religious Zionist Party
Poll position 5
5 – Former MK Orit Struck of Hebron; 6 – Avi Maoz, head of the haredi-religious-Zionist, anti-LGBT Noam Party, former Construction Ministry director-general and one of the leaders of the efforts to free Natan Sharansky from the USSR
Meretz
Poll position 4-5
4 – New Arab woman candidate and coexistence activist Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi; 5 – Arab former MK Esawi Frej
Ra'am (United Arab List)
Poll position 4
5 – MK Iman Khatib-Yasin, first religious Muslim woman MK who wears a hijab