At the end of three weeks of focused battle for Avigdor Liberman's Russian voters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed. Not only has the chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu retained his traditional voters in the Russian sector, but he has continued to grow in polls, taking in mandates from the right and left, from the Blue and White Party and Kulanu. Netanyahu has still not managed to crack Liberman, who has reinvented himself as a champion against religious coercion and has attracted large audiences.
A poll published July 16 on Channel 12 predicts that Liberman will win 10 mandates — twice his strength in April’s election. The Likud, which has incorporated Kulanu, would win only 31 seats, and the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc without Liberman would win only 55, meaning that Netanyahu won’t be able to form a government. According to the poll, Blue and White, with 30 mandates, won’t be able to form one among the left either.
