Likud Signs Vote-Sharing Deal With Religious Zionism-Zehut List

The Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, signed a surplus-vote sharing agreement with the Religious Zionism-Zehut joint list ahead of the October 27 elections. The arrangement allows the parties to pool leftover votes to secure additional Knesset seats, provided they meet the 3.25% electoral threshold. This move follows efforts by Netanyahu to prevent the kind of right-wing fragmentation seen in 1992, which resulted in a left-wing government.

The Religious Zionism party, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and the Zehut party, led by Moshe Feiglin, had previously agreed on September 1 to run as a joint list. While this consolidation aims to strengthen the right-wing bloc, it has created friction with other allies. The far-right Otzma Yehudit party, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, was excluded from the agreement.

Otzma Yehudit accused Likud of attempting to weaken its influence to facilitate a future unity government with Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party and a primary opposition candidate. Eisenkot dismissed the Likud-RZP arrangement as a matter for the "draft-dodgers' bloc."