As Yesh Atid surges in polls, Shas says it won’t back Lapid as PM

Shas chairman and key coalition partner Aryeh Deri said he would not endorse centrist party’s leader Yair Lapid for prime minister in a future election, as opinion polls predicted Yesh Atid would surge to become the largest party in the government.

“I would not recommend Lapid for prime minister,” Deri told Channel 2 on Saturday’s “Meet the Press.”

“The seats that went to Lapid were drawn from the [left-wing] Zionist Union and they [the voters] are looking for a home,” Deri said. “I’m willing to bet that the results of the next elections will not reflect the outcome of these polls,” he predicted.

Instead, the interior minister urged Lapid to join Netanyahu’s government rather than seeking to defeat him in a future election.

“Take your 11 seats and become foreign minister,” Deri recommended to Lapid. “That’s a lot more realistic than your imaginary 27 mandates.”

In recent months, Yesh Atid party has been rising in opinion polls — repeatedly coming out ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing Likud party.

A Channel 10 survey published on Friday showed Lapid’s party winning 27 of the 120 Knesset seats — up from its current total of 11 and outstripping Likud as Israel’s biggest party.

The poll, overseen by leading statistician Camil Fuchs, found that if elections were held today, Likud would win 23 seats, down from its current total of 30.

The predictions matched similar results from several polls conducted in recent months that also saw Yesh Atid making large gains.

While this would theoretically leave Lapid strongly placed to form a majority coalition and become prime minister, past differences with Yesh Atid’s ideological foes in the ultra-Orthodox parties could prevent Lapid from forming a government. The United Torah Judaism and Shas parties have both said they would not sit in a coalition with Lapid over his past efforts to draft the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF, legislation that has since been rolled back after Netanyahu fired Lapid, called elections in 2015, and incorporated the Haredi parties in his new coalition while keeping Yesh Atid out.

Formed by Lapid in 2012, the Yesh Atid party stormed to a surprising 19-seat success in the 2013 elections for the Knesset, becoming the second-largest party and joining Likud in the coalition. In the 2015 elections the party slid to the 11 seats it currently holds in the Knesset, where it sits in the opposition.

Netanyahu has served as prime minister since 2009, winning three straight elections. Netanyahu currently presides over a right-wing coalition that is dominated by nationalist allies of the West Bank settler movement.

Last month, the prime minister became entangled in a coalition fight between the right-wing Jewish Home party and the center-right Kulanu over the so-called Regulation Bill and the court-ordered evacuation of the West Bank outpost of Amona.

Netanyahu, who needs the support of both the eight-seat Jewish Home and 10-seat Kulanu in order to maintain a coalition, managed to reach a last-minute compromise regarding the controversial legislation, staving off a coalition crisis.

AP contributed to this report.