Polls Show: Sa’ar-Led Party Could Secure Up to 18 Seats

The new party led by Gideon Sa’ar, a former member of the Likud and an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who declared he would form his own party, could secure from 15 to 18 seats in new elections, polls revealed Wednesday.

The polls released by Channel 12, Channel 13 and Kan News all put Likud at the top, with 26, 28 and 25 seats, respectively.

Yamina, chaired by former Minister Naftali Bennett, comes second in the former two polls with 18 and 16 seats respectively, while Sa’ar’s party trails Likud with 18 seats in the poll by Kan.

In the Channel 12 poll, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid comes fourth, after Sa’ar’s party with 15 seats, while in the Channel 13 poll, it ends on the same note as Yamina, also claiming 16 seats. The Kan poll gives Yesh Atid 15 seats.

The Joint List of Arab parties secures 11 seats on all three polls. Trailing behind are the chareidi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, Blue and White, Yisrael Beytenu and leftwing Meretz, securing six to eight seats each, depending on the poll.

The surveys paint a fragmented picture of the Israeli political scene, handing the Likud-Shas-UTJ alliance 42 seats (Channel 12 and 13 polls) or 40 seats (Kan poll). They would still need at least one, or both, of Yamina and Sa’ar’s party to have a majority.