Meretz Party Chairwoman Zehava Gal-On leaves her frustrations at home every morning as she sets out for another endless day. She travels to the traditional bastions of Meretz support in the kibbutzim, universities, the Arab sector and big cities, and tries to bring voters back to the fold.

She's very frustrated, though. The decision by Meretz voters to jump to the Zionist Camp apparently does not result from disappointment with the party’s six Knesset members, who stood out with their social legislative initiatives and kept promoting peace with the Palestinians. The voters simply identified an opportunity to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by supporting a larger party. Paradoxically, the left could end up paying dearly for its hopes of ousting him. If the center-left bloc loses voters, Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog’s prospects of forming a government will decline.

According to the polls, Meretz has been walking a precarious line on the verge of the electoral threshold of four Knesset seats. In some polls, the party looks likely to get one seat above the bar; in others, it goes down to the dangerous line under which Meretz could simply disappear.

Four days are left before the March 17 elections, and Gal-On is well aware of the burden on her shoulders. She could be the one on whose watch Meretz disappears from the Knesset after being a fixture on the political scene more than two decades. Such a failure, even with extenuating circumstances, will be linked to her name.