For several weeks now, the ruling Likud party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been stagnating in the polls. Although the Likud is still by far the biggest party with the widest lead in the polls, and the public persistently pegs Netanyahu as the candidate best suited to be prime minister, his victory in the March 23 elections is far from assured.

Stranger still is the fact that not a single poll points to a clear winner who could replace Israel’s longest-serving premier. At least three candidates stand a chance, at least theoretically: opposition chair and head of the Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid; former Likud stalwart Gideon Saar, who recently formed the New Hope party; and former Defense Minister and Chair of the Yamina party Naftali Bennett.

One other name not usually mentioned in this regard but who could under certain circumstances hit the jackpot is Avigdor Liberman, chair of the Yisrael Beitenu party, who appointed himself two years ago to lead the charge against Netanyahu. While Liberman is polling in the single digits — an average of 7 seats in the 120-seat Knesset — many signs point to a quiet, steady rise in support for the former defense and foreign minister. The seething public anger against the ultra-Orthodox at their seeming disregard for the state-imposed anti-coronavirus restrictions could turn the anti-clerical hawk into an election surprise.

The absence of a clear-cut Netanyahu challenger for leadership of the state is the anomaly of the March 2021 elections. Netanyahu is the clear favorite — but against whom? In other words, once the election results are in — three weeks from now — Israel could find itself facing an even more chaotic situation than it did after each of its three inconclusive elections in less than two years. Even if Netanyahu fails to nail down control of the 61 Knesset seats without which he cannot form a government, the results are unlikely to determine a clear successor.