Yair Golan accuses Netanyahu of planning to disrupt October 27 election

Democrats chairman Yair Golan accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of planning to disrupt Israel’s October 27 election, warning that the premier may refuse to accept the vote’s results.

Speaking at a Yedioth Ahronoth conference, Golan pushes back against pessimism over his party’s recent drop in the polls. A recent survey projected the Democrats to win eight seats.

“We need to put an end to this pessimistic spirit,” he says. “We are going to win.” He argues that parties in his bloc are safely above the electoral threshold, while those in Netanyahu’s bloc face a greater risk of falling below it.

Netanyahu “cannot form a government,” Golan says, arguing that the chances of a government emerging from his bloc are “much higher” than from Netanyahu’s. According to most polls, neither Netanyahu’s presumed bloc nor the bloc of the four Jewish-led parties opposing him is close to winning a majority in the 120-seat Knesset in the October 27 election.

Golan also defends the possibility of partnering with Arab parties in a coalition, saying the idea that such cooperation is impossible after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught is “completely unacceptable” to him.

“Anyone who accepts the principle that Israel is the home of the Jewish people and a free, democratic state is a potential partner,” he says. Other parties in the opposition bloc have rejected such cooperation.

Asked whether lawmakers in his bloc could join a Netanyahu-led government, Golan says, “It won’t happen with me.” He urges other opposition leaders to have their candidates pledge not to sit with Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir or “draft evaders” — referring to ultra-Orthodox parties.

“Israel cannot recover if we allow this inciting, lying, corrupt man to keep dragging it down,” he says about the premier, a day after fellow opposition candidate, former prime minister and B’Yachad party chair Naftali Bennett, said Netanyahu could be a part of a future government, though he later insisted this was a joke.

Golan also warns that Netanyahu could attempt to disrupt the upcoming election.

“There is no doubt that [Netanyahu] will try to disrupt the democratic process before the election and on election day,” he says. “What happened in the United States on January 6, 2021, could certainly happen here too,” referring to the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump after his election loss to Joe Biden.