Bayit Yehudi, led by Naftali Bennett is really surprising me. When the campaign started I thought they would do very well and finish with 18-20 seats but as the campaign progressed the polls kept showing them slipping further down the line. I am not sure why this has happened except for the possibility that he lost many seats to Eli Yishai’s “Yachad” party and also that he is not saying anything new. When he ran for the Knesset the first time, in 2013, he was new on the scene, brought life to the dead and boring “Mafdal/NRP” party and was a refreshing force on the political map but now – two years later – he is saying the same thing and simply no longer exciting. On one hand, Bennett’s campaign is very good with a strong message and well-targeted to his audience but he has not succeeded in breaking out of his comfort zone and due to the reasons stated above it looks as though he will not gain even one additional seat and will remain at 12. This is what the polls are showing, although I give him one more and my official prediction for Bayit Yehudi is 13.
This year’s two big newcomers are Moshe Kahlon and Eli Yishai. While they are both well experienced politicians – and even former Ministers in various governments – this is the first time they are running as leaders of their own parties. Kahlon broke away from Likud while Yishai broke away from Shas. Kahlon’s party is called “Kulanu” and he is trying to accomplish in 2015 what Lapid did in 2013 but that won’t happen. People like Kahlon but his dry and boring personality can put a clown to sleep and he will not get more than 8 seats. Yishai is a very interesting guy who has tremendous potential. His “Yachad” party is desperately trying to swing away votes from Shas and Bennett but his goal of 10 seats will not be achieved. I was very happy when he agreed to a deal with Baruch Marzel but even that has not produced what he was looking for. I do however feel that he will do better than the polls are showing and will end up winning 6 seats.
The big losers of this election will be Lieberman’s “Yisrael Beytenu” party and the extreme, fanatical leftist party known as “Meretz”. Lieberman currently has 11 seats in the Knesset while Meretz, led by Zahava Gal-on, has 6. Both of these parties will be very close to the minimum of 4 seats. I predict that Meretz will have just 4 and Lieberman, because of the many Russian voters who support him, will sneak in with 5.
The Haredi parties are called United Torah Judaism and Shas. Both of these parties have tremendous potential but fail to get even close to it because of immature and selfish issues that I would rather not discuss in this article. They could be doing so much more for their constituents and for the nation but they refuse to do so. My prediction is that UTJ will end up with 7 (the same number they have now) and Shas will get 7 as well.
The last party is the United Arab list which is gaining strength and should end up with 13. We all need to realize what is happening with this party and how they are gaining in strength, motivation and legitimacy. This is not a good sign for the State of Israel and it must be addressed in the first opportunity possible.
There you have it, people, the official 2015 Knesset election predictions by Shmuel Sackett. I wouldn’t run to Vegas to put money on any of this but I strongly believe that this is how it will begin. It is funny that I wrote “begin” and not “end” because in Israeli politics, Election Day is the BEGINNING of the circus, not the end! Once the seats are figured out, the coalition building starts and – as they say in the Olympics- Let the games begin!