Prime Minister Yair Lapid has reportedly asked renegade ex-Yisrael Beytenu lawmaker Eli Avidar to withdraw the candidacy of his new party but was rebuffed.
Avidar, who rebelled against Yisrael Beytenu and the coalition on multiple occasions throughout its tenure, left Avigdor Liberman’s party and recently formed his own, under the name Israel Free and Democratic. However, no polls have put him anywhere near the electoral threshold to enter the Knesset.
According to Channel 13 news, Lapid met Avidar today and asked him to nix his party’s candidacy if opinion polls continue to predict he’ll fail to make it into the Knesset, thus wasting votes for the center-left electoral bloc, which also includes the right-wing, secularist Yisrael Beytenu.
Avidar reportedly answered that he’s open to mergers and unions, but will run “under any circumstances.”
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