With four days left, no clear coalition can be created following Tuesday’s election, according to a final poll carried out by Panels Politics on behalf of Maariv.
As in a similar poll last Friday, the Netanyahu bloc received 60 seats, the Lapid bloc received 56 seats and Hadash-Ta’al received the remaining four, the survey found.
The only movement took place within the blocs. Shas gained one seat at the expense of United Torah Judaism, and Yesh Atid grew by two seats at the expense of Labor.
The poll showed Meretz, Labor, Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am barely passing the electoral threshold of 3.25% of the general vote.
The full results were Likud 31, Yesh Atid 25, Religious Zionist Party 14, National Unity 12, Shas nine, UTJ six, Yisrael Beytenu six, Meretz five, and Labor, Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am at four each.
Habayit Hayehudi led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked once again failed to pass the threshold with just 2.1% of the general vote.
Balad won 1.8% of the vote, and the Economic Party led by Prof. Yaron Zelekha won 1.2%. No other party won more than 1%.
The poll included 1,005 respondents, with a 3.1% margin of error.
In other news, former Yamina MK Abir Kara revealed that Shaked had offered him a deal in which he would quit the race and support her, and in exchange receive an economic ministerial position.
Kara refused the offer, arguing that this amounted to effectively “selling his soul to the polluted political mechanism” that he was trying to fight.
UTJ’s MK Moshe Gafni said in an interview on Walla TV that Netanyahu had intended to form a coalition with Ra’am’s support “from the outside,” meaning that Ra’am would only vote in favor of the coalition’s formation but then not actively take part in it.
This contradicted Netanyahu and the Likud’s denial that they had intended to do so. In the current campaign, Likud has accused Ra’am of being “terror supporters.”
Gafni’s comment came after recordings leaked earlier this week of RZP chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich calling Netanyahu the “liar of all liars.” Smotrich in the recording said Netanyahu had indeed intended on forming a coalition with Ra’am, and this was avoided only because RZP rejected it.
Meretz and Hadash-Ta’al continued their “gevalt” campaign to get the public to vote for them since there was a chance they would not pass the electoral threshold.
“There is no easy way to say this,” Meretz leader Zehava Galon said. “We are five days before the election, and this morning we received a number of public opinion polls that show unequivocally: In the current state of affairs, Meretz is facing a clear option of not passing the electoral threshold,” Galon said.