Poll: Public Disagrees With Barak About Being Most Fit to Be PM

A poll conducted following former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s claim to be is more fit for the nation’s highest office than anyone else, including the incumbent Binyamin Netanyahu, found that an overwhelming majority of Israelis disagreed.

A Midgam poll published over Channel 2 appeared to refute Barak’s claim, as it found that that more than four times as many people believe PM Netanyahu is fit to be prime minister than Barak is.

While Barak cited a recent poll that he said showed a majority of secular Israelis prefer him to PM Netanyahu, the Midgam data put him well behind PM Netanyahu in the general public’s assessment:

PM Netanyahu led with 29 percent, followed by Yair Lapid with 14, Naftali Bennett with 8; Avi Gabbay tied with Barak for fourth place with 7 percent of respondents saying they are most fit to be prime minister. A general lack of enthusiasm for any of the candidates was reflected in the percentage who said “none of the above”: 35 percent.

Meanwhile, a survey commissioned by Walla News and released Sunday showed that while PM Netanyahu does well in comparison to any other single candidate, a party fielding a combination of well-known figures could defeat him in the next election.

An electoral list featuring Lapid, Kulanu head Moshe Kahlan and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabriel ‘Gabi’ Ashkenazi would come out ahead of PM Netanyahu’s Likud by a 33 to 26 margin.

According to the poll, the United Torah Judaism party would gain one seat, rising to seven from the six it won in 2015. However, Shas would have only three seats, or less than the current threshold of 3.5 percent of the total vote for representation in the Knesset.