Isracast Assessment: If Moshe Kahlon Does Not Run Now He'll Be Viewed As Vacillating Wimp Or Manipulative Con Artist New Poll Indicates Kahlon Would Take Thirteen Seats, Five From Likud-Lieberman Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Calls On Kahlon To Stay In Party – Other Party Leaders Urge Kahlon To Bolt Likud-Lieberman Due To Economic Policy
Moshe Kahlon’s political career could be finished if he does not carry through with forming his own party and running in the upcoming election. If he backs down now, or accepts a new Netanyahu offer, he will be viewed as either a political wimp or a manipulative con artist. In both cases he would lose face both inside the Likud and with the public at large. By first taking a ‘time out’ at the start of the election campaign, the ‘darling of the Likud’ was asking a lot of his party. But by now threatening to run against the Likud, which is in itself a glaring condemnation of Bibi’s economic policies, Kahlon has gone one step too far. If Kahlon is as smart as he is cracked up to be, he must have realized this at the start; if he didn’t he is a rank amateur playing at high stake politics.
Kahlon – key to power…
Impact: Naturally’s Kahlon’s moves have sent shock waves throughout the Likud. At the pinnacle, they could have stricken Bibi with a hear attack. First the Likud leader had wrapped up a deal with Avigdor Lieberman that would have won the upcoming election in advance. It appeared to be a brilliant gambit which was passed almost unanimously by the party convention, with Kahlon waving the gavel. But then the Kahlon party bombshell caught Bibi on his visit to France. The PM tried to put a brave face on by saying he found it hard to believe that Kahlon would bolt the Likud and form a rival party. In Israel, Likud back-benchers were calling Kahlon a ‘traitor who caught carried away with his own importance’.
The latest polls indicate that a Kahlon paty would endanger Likud’s election prospects. It compared party support before and after a Kahlon party entry.
Likud – Lieberman: 35-5
Labor: 24-2
Lapid: 15-3
Shas: 13-0
According to the poll, if Kahlon runs independently he would take five seats away from Likud, two from Labor and three from Lapid. Shas would not lose any seats to Kahlon. And this is the shocker: Although Likud – Lieberman would still win the most seats they would lose their automatic 61 member majority of Knesset members who would tell President President Shimon Peres that they backed Netanyahu for new prime minister. At present, Kahlon who is a Land of Israel hardliner, who supports settlement building in Judea & Samaria, has let it be known that he would support Netanyahu after the election. And the Likud leader would need Kahlon to form a new coalition. Kahlon would then hold the key to power and have a greater say in setting economic policy. This could pave the way for Kahlon’s eventual return to the Likud- Liberman party a run for the leadership.
Social protest drives campaign…
The basis for the current vortex in Israeli politics is the social protest movement that brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets of Tel Aviv in the summer of 2011. It explains the rising popularity of Labor’s Shelly Yachimovich and Yair Lapid and now the political procrastinating of Moshe Kahlon. They represent the Left, Center and the Right agree on the need to change the system and the only way to do it is by the ballot box.
