Israeli election to take place March 23rd, 2021

 Israel is going to the polls in March.

There's not much to update you on since the last post. Another Likud MK has joined New Hope. Meaning of the 36 elected earlier this year, 3 are now in New Hope, alongside the 2 Derekh Eretz members. Also, Amir Peretz will not lead Labor, which has not polled above the threshold since March 19th of this year (that's a week after US-EU flights were suspended and North America went into 24/7 Covid panic) 

Instead, I want to use this post to detail how I will discuss this particular election.

1 - Combining the Orthodox parties.

Unless something happens to reverse this decision (such as one of the two parties taking a 'who we will sit with in coalition' decision that radically differs from the other), I will be lumping UTJ and Shas poll/seat projection results into a single "Haredi" result. That means instead of, for example, Shas sitting at 8 and UTJ at 7, I will report that Haredim (or the Haredi parties) are at 15. I may need some guidance in Hebrew plurals to ensure I only apply the 'm' when/where appropriate. As these two parties will generally agree to most of the same things in the context of coalitions, it makes little sense to split them at this juncture. 

2 - Noting Joint List as having an Arabic voting base.

Similar to my naming of the above, I will be referring to Joint List as "Arab parties" or "Arabs." This is perhaps not accurate, as, one of the 4 core parts of the Joint List is a Communist party that has many Jewish Israeli voters. However for the same reasons as above - coalitions, and the willingness to form one - the term 'arab parties' makes sense in context.  

3 - Meretz will be considered the broad left.

Sitting to the left of all the Zionist parties, Meretz will simply be called the "Left." I may change this pending on which people and/or parties decide to run alongside Meretz, but, for now, I feel this is the most useful term.

4 - All other (major) parties will be named after their leader. 

Personality is huge this election. People are less voting for Likud, or New Hope, or Yamina, and more are voting for Bibi, or Sa'ar, or Bennett. Gantz and Lapid dominate Blue and White, and Yesh Atid respectively, and Lieberman is, arguably, more famous tha the Yisrael Beiteinu he leads. 

5 - Unexpected events will be dealt with as they come (such as election coalitions)

Determinations will need to be made should parties like Gesher, Jewish Home, Labor, or Otzma Yehudit begin polling above the threshold; I may refer to these parties by their party name, their political position, or their leader's name, on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, coalitions for the election of any of the parties may require a changing of the naming standard. Should whatever party Ron Huldai is looking to form take shape, it is likely that party will simply be noted as Huldai's party. 

With that in mind, the poll average presented in the previous post, would be phrased as such:

28 - Bibi
19 - Sa'ar
16 - Haredim
14 - Lapid
13 - Bennett
11 - Arabs
7 - Lieberman
6 - Left
6 - Gantz