Sunday, March 26, 2006

Time for some elections predictions

There are 120 seats up for grabs on Tuesday, March 28. How many will each party get, and what kind of coalition will form the government? What will the voter turnout be?

I am usually terrible at this but here is my first prediction, which I will probably revise tomorrow:

Kadima: 38
Labor: 16
Likud: 14
Shas: 10
Yisrael Beitenu (Avigdor Liberman): 8
Meretz-Yahad: 6
United Torah Judaism: 6
Balad (Bishara): 6
Shinui (Levintal): 6
Hetz (Poraz): 4
National Religious Party-National Union (Elon): 4
Hadash (Barake): 1
United Arab List: 1

I've left out Herut (Kleiner), the National Jewish Front (Marzel), the Greens, the Green Leaf Party, and a number of other small parties. Maybe one or two of these parties will pick up a seat each. In the case of the right-wing parties, those seats would come at the expense of Yisrael Beitenu and the National Religious Party-National Union list.

If the Green Leaf Party wins a seat, it would not be as much at the expense of left-wing parties - that seat will have been won due to a higher than anticipated voter turnout among young people who would not have voted for any of the established parties.

By the way, we may be surprised by some other very small party gaining a seat. There are a number of such parties representing extremely narrow interests who may draw on a disillusioned, apathetic electorate. This will become more likely if the weather is good on elections day.

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