Netanyahu’s Likud party to win Israeli polls: Survey

By Arnaout

JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party is poised to emerge in the upcoming election, a new survey showed on Tuesday, one day after the ruling coalition called early polls.

On Monday, the coalition partners decided to dissolve the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) and go to new election in April.

A poll conducted by the Panels Politics polling agency for Maariv newspaper showed that Likud would win 30 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Likud had won 30 seats in the last general election in 2015.

Former army chief of staff Benny Gantz would come second with 13 seats in parliament if he decided to run in the vote, the survey showed.

The poll predicted that the Jewish Home party would snatch 11 seats, while the Zionist Union would gain only nine seats compared to 24 seats it won in 2015.

The survey included 502 Jewish and Arab respondents.

Monday’s decision to call early election came after a dispute between coalition partners over a compulsory military service bill as United Torah Judaism vowed to withdraw from the coalition if the Knesset voted in favor of the draft law.

Army service is mandatory for all Israeli citizens (three years for men and two years for women), with the exception of members of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews account for roughly 10 percent of Israel's total population. They tend to live in closed communities and adhere to strict interpretations of Jewish religious law.