The enthusiastic and much-publicized partnership between Labor Chairman Isaac Herzog and former Minister Tzipi Livni, which took us by storm at a festive news conference on Dec. 10, has proven successful in creating the biggest party in Israeli politics, with 24 seats, according to initial polls. But the shape of the political arena after the 2015 elections will be determined by a completely different couple, one who prefers, for now, to operate behind the scenes based on quiet understanding.

The slate of the power couple of Israeli politics will be seized by former Likud Minister Moshe Kahlon and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who will hold the top jobs in the next coalition government, whatever its constellation. They are the ones who will determine the identity of Israel’s next prime minister: Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or perhaps Kahlon or Liberman, according to a certain rotation scenario.

If they decide to join up with the center-left parties and hand Herzog the key to forming the next government, they will probably demand a rotating premiership for one of them. This will be an outlandish price to pay. If they go with Netanyahu and the right, they will put an end to the dream of a Livni-Herzog joint leadership by the two who enjoy branding themselves as a duo that’s changing the rules of the political game. That description is far from being true. The truth is that the Herzog-Livni party takes votes away from other parties within the left-center bloc, and does not change the balance of power between the right and left blocs.

The joint run by Herzog’s Labor and Livni’s Hatnua could encounter the same problem that Livni faced when she headed the Kadima Party and got 28 Knesset seats in the 2009 elections — one more seat than the Likud — but found herself on the opposition benches after failing to form a government. According to the latest polls, the center-left bloc is weakened by a seeping of votes away from former Minister Yair Lapid to Kahlon’s new party.