Right-wing Yamina indicates it will back the candidate best for its voter base

Yamina says that based on the initial exit polls that gave the party 7-8 seats, it will have to have a “serious discussion” about who to back as prime minister, saying it will make the decision “that is best for the public that voted for us.”

Speaking to The Times of Israel moments after the exit polls showed that neither the pro- or anti-Netanyahu bloc had received 61 seats, and that Yamina would be able to give either side a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, party spokesman Moshe Basus says, “we will hope for the best and do the best by what the public gave us.”

“Once the results are final, we will sit down and have a serious discussion on what is best for the public that voted for us,” Basus says.

Yamina was one of only two parties that did not take a clear stance on backing or opposing Netanyahu as prime minister. The other, Ra’am, was predicted not to pass the electoral threshold in all three exit polls.

Last week Bennett publically signed a pledge not to sit in a government in which Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is the prime minister.