Pollster says right-wing religious bloc, center-left parties in fact polling evenly

A leading Israeli pollster tells the Haaretz daily that internal surveys he has performed show the combined strength of right-wing religious parties and center-left/Arab factions at 55-56 seats a piece, indicating a fresh round of elections could result in renewed political deadlock.

While recent polls have shown Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party receiving a majority in the 120-seat Knesset together with ultra-Orthodox factions and the national-religious Yamina, Camil Fuchs says most undecided voters are on the center-left, skewing the survey results in favor of the right.

He therefore asked voters to choose whether they would vote for a right-wing, left-wing, centrist or ultra-Orthodox party, which brought the blocs to 55-56 seats each.

Such a result would again position Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman, whose right-wing secularist party Fuchs predicts would get eight seats, as coalition kingmaker.

Fuchs’s findings come as reports say Netanyahu is seeking new elections later this year and intends to ditch his power-sharing agreement with Blue and White.