Labor and Meretz chiefs hold brief, Lapid-brokered unity talks, without results
Merav Michaeli says merging left-wing parties harms anti-Netanyahu bloc, while Zehava Galon indicates she is open to joint slate
Leaders of the Knesset’s left flank Labor and Meretz met with Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Saturday night, amid pressure from him for the two parties to run together in the November elections.
The meeting lasted less than an hour and ended without any reports of a breakthrough.
Lapid has said that it’s “incredibly important” for the Labor and Meretz parties to unite their slates in order to prevent either one from slipping below the 3.25% vote threshold to enter Knesset. But Labor has been very reluctant to agree to an alliance.
November’s race is expected to be tight, and votes wasted on a party that doesn’t cross the threshold would likely cost Lapid’s bloc a shot at maintaining power and preventing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc from returning to government.
While Labor’s Merav Michaeli and Meretz’s Zehava Galon accepted Lapid’s invitation to meet, Michaeli has repeatedly opposed a merger. Labor has dropped from six to five seats in recent polls, skirting just above the four-seat minimum to enter Knesset.
“My position on a merger is known,” said Michaeli at the start of the meeting. “I came because I was invited, and I am happy to hear the prime minister’s position from him for the first time, not through the media.
“We may have different views on how to get there, but the goal is clear and we are partners in it: to prevent the return of Netanyahu and the right to power.”
Galon, who recently retook Meretz’s reins after a break from politics, is polling at between four and five seats and has been open to unification discussions since she was voted in as party leader last month.
A Channel 12 news poll published Friday showed that among centrist and left-wing voters, 45 percent were in favor of a merger between Labor and Meretz. 35% were against and the remaining 20% were undecided.
Lapid has said that current polls find that a merger between the two left-wing parties does not harm the number of seats they would potentially gain, while Michaeli has argued that polls do indicate that a union would reduce the number of potential seats.
Israeli TV polls are often too small to accurately predict election results, with margins of error large enough to sway as many as five seats, but they can offer a general overview of public opinion and often influence jockeying between politicians.
Israel’s national election will be held on November 1.
Carrie Keller-Lynn contributed to this report.
