Lapid’s coalition crumbles ahead of Israeli elections
Unlike opposition head Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Yair Lapid has failed to unite his camp ahead of the November elections.
The Israeli political system has been in turmoil for the last week, ahead of the Sept. 15 deadline for parties to submit their list of candidates for the upcoming general elections. Reports on parties merging and splitting have been monopolizing the headlines.
Everyone has been watching to see if the two parties on the Zionist left — Labor and Meretz — decide to run together. Prime Minister Yair Lapid has been doing everything in his power to get the two parties to unite.
Last night the drama emerged from the Arab parties.
In its heyday, the Joint List, a coalition of four parties, won a total of 15 seats. Then it started to disintegrate. The first to leave was Mansour Abbas and his Ra’am party, which withdrew from the Joint List right before the March 2021 election. It looked like the remaining three parties would continue to run together, but yesterday, Balad withdrew from the agreement it had signed.
