Centrist leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid announced this morning that they have agreed to merge their parties in a joint ticket for the Israeli election on 9th April.
The leaders have unveiled the new name for their joint electoral slate as ‘Blue and White’.
In a joint statement, Yesh Atid, led by Lapid, and Israel Resilience, led by Gantz, said: “Motivated by national responsibility, Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Moshe Yaalon have decided to form a joint list that will serve as Israel’s new governing party. The new governing party will present a new team of security and social leaders that will ensure the country’s security, and will reunite the parts of the people and heal the divided Israeli society”.
Gantz and Lapid are two of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top political rivals.
The announcement comes just hours before a 10pm deadline tonight for parties to finalise their electoral lists, and follows weeks of speculation about the possibility of a centrist bloc to challenge Netanyahu.
Polls have consistently projected former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz’s ‘party of generals’ as overtaking the otherwise certain lead of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.
On Monday, Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister and one of Israel’s most high-profile politicians, announced that she was quitting politics, as polls showed plummeting support for her party Hatnuah.
Yesterday the Jewish Home party announced it will merge with the far right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party after its central committee voted to approve a deal.
Established in 2012, Otzma Yehudit is led by former National Union MK Michael Ben Ari and far right activists Itamar Ben Gvir, Baruch Marzel and Benti Gopstein. They are followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was a Knesset member from 1984-88 before his Kach Party was declared an illegal terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and many other Western countries.
Israel’s electoral system is based on nation-wide proportional representation, and a coalition needs to be assembled of at least 61 of the 120 Members of the Knesset in order to function.
