Only six Knesset seats for Yair Lapid, new poll says

Netanyahu’s Likud party would sweep the next elections, while Kadima would lose more than half its current seats

The political fortunes of Israeli politics’ new kid on the block may be turning south before a single vote has even been cast, according to a new poll.

Journalist-turned-politician Yair Lapid has been heralded as the Knesset’s Next Big Thing, but a survey shows a party led by him would gather only six Knesset seats were elections held today, making him only the sixth-largest faction.

When he first left his position as Channel 2 news anchor last month, pundits predicted he would garner 10 seats or more.

Lapid kicked off his political career on Thursday with a speech in which he slammed the ultra-Orthodox party Shas for “controlling the Knesset” with only a few seats.

The new survey, conducted by Prof. Avi Degani, head of the research institute Geocartography, puts Shas ahead of a Lapid party, with nine seats.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, on the other hand, is apparently gaining in popularity. The party, which currently holds 27 seats, would sweep the elections with 39 mandates and thus become the Knesset’s largest faction by far with more than twice as many seats as second-place Yisrael Beiteinu. According to the poll, Yisrael Beiteinu, the party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, would grab 13 seats, two less than it currently holds.

Kadima and Labor would follow closely, each getting 12 seats. For Shelly Yachimovich’s Labor, this would mean four more mandates than it currently holds, while Kadima, led by opposition head Tzipi Livni, would lose more than half of its current 28 seats.

National Union and Habayit Hayehudi would both get five seats, gaining one and two seats, respectively. Independence, the new faction founded by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, would not receive enough votes to enter the Knesset, according to the poll.

Knesset analyst Jeremy Saltan observed that the nationalist-right camp seems to be growing: “According to this poll, Netanyahu could form a coalition of 62 seats with Lieberman, National Union and Jewish Home [Habayit Hayehudi] without the need for any ultra-Orthodox or center-left parties.”