For all you Netanyahu haters out there who actually believe
he is the most unpopular, corrupt, and incompetent prime minister in Israel’s
history… well it just ain’t so. Among your own circle of friends he might be believed
to be all of those things, but statistics say otherwise. WJD reports:
(W)hen pollsters asked who was most suited to be prime minister… 51 percent of those polled support(ed) him.
And from Ynet, here is the rest of the story:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party is
currently polling four seats ahead of its top rival, the center-left Zionist
Union, the latest i24news poll revealed Sunday.
According to the survey, which was conducted by telephone among the representative sample of 500 Jewish and 200 Arab respondents aged 18 and over, if the elections were held today the Likud would get 27 seats and the Zionist Union would get 23. The poll had a four percent margin of error.
The results stand in contradiction those
of other recent
polls, which has the two parties tied in a dead heat, or even put the
Zionist Union ahead of Netanyahu.
Two prominent parties who were running the risk of not
passing Israel's newly instated 4 percent election threshold were the left wing
Meretz and religious right wing Shas, which for the first time was overtaken by
Yahad (Together) party – a Shas offshoot led by former Shas leader Eli Yishai –
which was polling at 5.
Meanwhile, like in previous polls, the United Arab List – a
political merger of Israel's three Arab parties – came in third, polling at 12
Knesset seats.
Naftali Bennett's Bayit Yehudi party, which aspires to
establish itself as the third largest -- and to make its leader a viable future
candidate for prime minister -- came in with a mere 11 seats, much lower than
initial polls.
Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu party was on the rise, riding on its
social welfare platform, with 9 Knesset seats. Yet its main rival for centrist
voters, Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party, was polling at a much higher 11.
Yisrael Beytenu, led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,
was polling at 7, slightly higher than in recent polls, which saw it scratch
the elections threshold -- which, ironically, the party itself put on the books
during the previous government.
The ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party is doubtlessly
enjoying the slump of rival Shas, once more under Aryeh Deri's stewardship,
though it enjoys a solid and loyal base of ultra-Orthodox voters.
According to Prof. Avi Degani, head of the Geocartography
institute which led the poll, the Likud's popularity does not seem compromised
by the recent string of scandals in which Netanyahu and his party are
embroiled, including the ongoing saga regarding Sarah Netanyahu's allegedly
exorbitant expenses.
Prof. Degani attributed Netanyahu's lead to the loyalty of
his core supporters, the traditional Likud voters who aren't overly impressed
with the wave of criticism directed at the leader.
On the other hand, Netanyahu's chief rival Isaac Herzog is
faltering, as the leader of the Zionist Union is facing allegations that he's
lacking in charisma and perhaps even unfit to be at the helm of the country at
this trying period. Tzipi Livni's lack of popularity represents another problem
for the Zionist Union, with some arguing the party would be better off without
her, and the results of the poll, where the party garnered 23 seats, bear this
out.
