Will its votes win any seats at all?

Transcript

1. A party promised to back Benjamin Netanyahu.
2. Now he is asking it to drop out of Israel's election.
3. Its leader is refusing.
4. Israel votes on Tuesday.
5. To see why, you need one number.
6. 3.25.
7. Israelis vote for a party, not a person.
8. The 120 seats of parliament, the Knesset,
9. are shared out by each party's share of the vote.
10. But first, a party needs 3.25% of the valid votes.
11. A party that falls short gets no seats.
12. Its votes are not passed to anyone.
13. They are set aside.
14. Only the parties above the line share the seats.
15. In 2022, the line was about 155,000 votes.
16. The left-wing party Meretz won about 151,000.
17. It missed by 4,000.
18. The Arab party Balad won almost 139,000.
19. 289,000 people voted for those two parties, and their votes won no seat at all.
20. Netanyahu and his allies won 48% of the valid votes.
21. Among the votes used to share out the seats, they had 53%.
22. In the end, they held 64 seats.
23. A majority.
24. In 2014, parliament raised the line to 3.25, about 4 seats' worth of votes.
25. So small parties often join onto one list, as the Arab parties did, or they quit.
26. On 19 October, Benny Gantz, a former defence minister, quit.
27. Poll after poll had his party below the line.
28. Now the fear is on Netanyahu's own side.
29. Ofer Winter, a retired general, leads a new party that promised to back only Netanyahu.
30. The final polls of Israel's 3 main TV channels all put it below the line.
31. Last Wednesday, Netanyahu posted that he should
32. step down "for the sake of the right-wing victory".
33. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich offered him a future minister's job if he quit.
34. Winter answered on video: "I am not surrendering today."
35. One more list, the Reservists, which hasn't picked a side,
36. clears it in only 1 of those polls.
37. None of the 3 gives Netanyahu's camp 61 seats, a majority.
38. Nor the alliance against him, led by Gadi Eisenkot,
39. which has ruled out governing with the Arab parties.
40. In 2022, most of the votes set aside were for Meretz and Balad,
41. outside Netanyahu's camp.
42. On Tuesday, the polls suggest, some could be votes for a party pledged to him.
43. Exit polls come out when polling stations close, at 10 on Tuesday night, Israel time.
44. Then watch Winter's party.
45. Will its votes win any seats at all?