Yashar and Democrats sign surplus-vote agreement, as do Yisrael Beytenu and B’Yachad

Israel’s four main opposition parties announce that they will sign surplus-vote agreements aimed at maximizing the anti-Netanyahu bloc’s representation in the next Knesset.

Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party announces that it will sign an agreement with Yair Golan’s Democrats, while Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu will sign one with B’Yachad, the joint electoral list headed by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

“In the upcoming election, the goal is clear: to prevent the loss of votes, maximize the strength of the bloc and replace the government responsible for the October 7 failure,” the Democrats say, welcoming the agreement with Yashar and cooperation across the opposition bloc.

Yashar says the agreements will help ensure that “every ballot cast by Israelis seeking change and the replacement of the government responsible for the October 7 failure will go to one of the parties in the change bloc.”

Unlike the mergers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed among smaller right-wing parties at risk of failing to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold, the agreements do not combine the four opposition parties into joint lists. Each will run independently and receive its own votes and seats.

Rather, under Israel’s electoral system, the agreements allow each pair to pool their surplus votes when the final Knesset seats are allocated, increasing the chances that one of the parties will pick up an additional seat.

All four opposition parties are currently polling far above the electoral threshold, with yesterday’s Channel 12 poll giving Yashar 25 seats, surpassing Netanyahu’s Likud by four seats. B’Yachad has been consistently polling at around 13 seats, the Democrats at 10 and Yisrael Beytenu at nine, giving the four-party opposition bloc a combined 57 seats, while other recent polls have put them at or even above the 61-seat majority needed to form a government.