According to all pollsters, the Balad party is very close to the blocking percentage. The increase in voting percentages in the Arab sector in the evening hours close to the closing of the polls may lead to the end of the current election campaign without a decision when Balad will also prevent the center-left bloc from forming a government. The nationalist Balad party split from Hadash-Ta’al just before the submission of the lists, and in all the polls it failed to pass the threshold. four mandates.
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While the victory of the right in the polls rests on the fact that Balad does not exceed the percentage of blocking, if the picture of the situation changes – the fragile victory may turn overnight into a draw and indecision between the blocs. We will remind that Balad strongly opposes cooperation with the Jewish parties within the government and some of the differences of opinion of the chairman of the party Sami Abu Shahada with Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi before splitting their turn over the question of supporting one of the leaders of the center-left parties in the president’s house for the purpose of forming a government.
Balad refrained from recommending which of the left parties to form a government even in previous elections and takes a sharp separatist line compared to Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al. Among other things, the party tried to promote a law that would make Israel a state for all its citizens, contrary to its definition as a Jewish and democratic state. We will remind you that in the current elections Balad was disqualified from running by the Central Election Commission and then disqualified by the Supreme Court on the grounds that not enough evidence was presented to disqualify the party according to the clause stating that the party works against the definition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.
If Balad does enter the bloc map, it will indeed distance Netanyahu from victory, but it will not bring Yair Lapid closer to him, who is not seen as a legitimate partner in Balad’s eyes. In preparation for the publication of the truth results in Likud, they began to report a fear of skewing the numbers in the Arab sector polling stations and reported violence in the polling stations. However, the chairman of the election committee stated that the reports are incorrect: “In the last few minutes, the Central Election Committee received a request regarding a so-called ‘unfolding event’ in the Arab sector. After checking with the police headquarters at the Central Election Committee, the committee is not aware of any unusual incidents in the Arab sector. Given that the counting has only begun at this time, there is certainly no basis for baseless rumors about so-called ‘fakes’ in this or that sector.”
The tensions and the small difference between victory and loss will make the next few hours critical. When the eyes of all the party leaders are watching the polling stations of the sector.