The upcoming municipal elections have heightened frictions within ultra-Orthodox parties and between them.

“I have a hard time believing that we’ll be able to heal the enormous rift caused by the municipal election. The final split is taking giant steps forward,” one ultra-Orthodox Knesset member told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. According to him, “The ultra-Orthodox Big Bang,” the split of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party Yahadut HaTorah, could happen any minute. Furthermore, closer cooperation between the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas Party and the Lithuanian Degel HaTorah faction of Yahadut HaTorah could lead to a future merger of those two groups into a single party or some other format.

Without joining forces in one way or another, the ultra-Orthodox parties can be expected lose strength, and with it their bargaining power in future coalition negotiations.

Yahadut HaTorah is a combination of the Degel HaTorah faction, whose most prominent representative in the Knesset is Finance Committee chair Moshe Gafni, and the Agudat Yisrael faction, which represents several Hassidic courts such as Gerrer (represented by Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman), Vizhnitz and Belz.