On Saturday, the Yesh Atid party of Prime Minister Yair Lapid, denied playing any role in the breakup of the Joint List party.
This was after one of the former leaders of the Joint List party blamed the prime minister for the dissolution of the Arab-majority alliance.
The split
Yesh Atid posted on its official Twitter page that they had not been involved in the split of the Joint list party and they did not know who was behind spreading this nonsense.
The division of Joint List into separate slates came a short while before the deadline for registering party candidates on Thursday night.
The Joint List comprised of three factions, which were Balad, Ta’al and Hadash and a day earlier, all of them had agreed to run together.
However, at the 11th hour, Balad decided to reverse its decision after a dispute over sharing one of its positions in the Knesset slate with Ta’al and Hadash.
The political system of Israel was caught off-guard due to the move and analysts noted that this split would work in favor of the right-religious bloc of opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s benefit
Should Balad or Hadash fail to cross the minimum vote threshold, it would benefit the former premier. Some have argued that Lapid can also benefit, as Ta’al-Hadash could recommend he form a government.
On Friday, two snap polls had been conducted, which gave 60 seats to the Netanyahu-led bloc, putting it just one short of a Knesset majority.
The two polls gave four seats each to Hadash-Ta’al and Raam, which is very close to the threshold and they showed Balad falling short of the threshold.
Sami Abou Shahadeh, the chairman of Balad, said on Saturday that the heads of Ta’al and Hadash had broken their agreement at the 11th hour.
He said that they had been forced to split and would now run alone in the November 1st elections. He went as far accusing premier Lapid of causing the split.
He did not provide evidence, but said that they had wanted to destroy the party, including Lapid.
Yesh Atid
Even though the Yesh Atid party denied being involved in the split, some of its members were certainly pleased with the move.
Meir Cohen, a top member of the Yesh Atid party, said that he was pleased that Balad had left because its leader had made comments against Israel.
As for Lapid’s involvement, he said that it was their argument and nothing more. He also added that Yesh Atid would not work with the Joint List party after the elections.
He stated that they would not ask for the support of the party in forming a coalition, or for any other kind of political cooperation.
This election would be the first one that all three Arab parties are running separately, after 2013. Back then, Ta’al and Raam had run together for a united slate and landed four seats.
Likewise, Hadash and Balad had run separately and had landed four and three seats, respectively.