Moshe Kahlon rejected overtures from Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid to create an alliance that would put their two parties in a good negotiating position with Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog.
While the two parties cannot run on a joint ticket, like the Arab parties, or like Labor and Hatnua (joined under the name Zionist Union but still comprising two distinct political parties), since there is a deadline by which factions can join or break apart and it has already passed – they can decide to mutually recommend the same candidate for prime minister and tie the coalition demands of one party with the other.
Moshe Kahlon at the launch event of his party’s youth campaign at the Morphium Club in Tel Aviv, February 12, 2015. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
In the last election, a marriage of convenience between Lapid and Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett eventually forced Prime Minister Netanyahu to build a government with Jewish Home and Yesh Atid, instead of his preference for a coalition with Labor and ultra-Orthodox parties.
A Haaretz poll actually found that if they joined forces, Kahlon and Lapid would be the leading list with the potential to get the largest number of Knesset seats in the coming election.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid speaks with Israeli students at the Blich High School in Ramat Gan on February 11, 2015. (photo credit: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
But the paper reports that emissaries from Lapid repeatedly came to Kulanu headquarters over the past week, offering the new party to stand together when the dust settles from counting the ballots.
Kahlon rejected those advances. According to Haaretz, Kulanu refuses to comment and Yesh Atid denies that any proposals to Kulanu were made.
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