Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to lead his Likud Party to victory and secure a fourth term in office, he will be well on his way to overtaking the nation’s iconic founding father, David Ben-Gurion, as the longest-ever serving premier _ and cementing a status as the dominant Israeli politician of the past two decades. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)Oded Balilty/The Associated Press
Like an underperforming athlete trying to rekindle his glory days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waded into the old Jewish market of Jerusalem last week much to the surprise of the people there.
It had been six years since Mr. Netanyahu last showed his face in the Mahane Yehuda souk – he was leader of the opposition then – and the lower-income Sephardi Jews who work and shop in this place have long been the mainstay of his Likud Party. These days, however, polls show that allegiance is slipping away and Mr. Netanyahu is in jeopardy of losing his bid for a fourth term in office.
This is the new reality that Mr. Netanyahu, as well as his chief rival, Labour Party Leader Isaac Herzog, must face in this week's hard-fought election: Those with a growing say in Israeli society – the poor, the young, the ultra-Orthodox and Arab Israelis – have made economic improvement their biggest demand, and mainstream parties can no longer count simply on party loyalty.
Indeed, most Israeli journalists were not given advance word that Mr. Netanyahu, who was elected in 1996, 2009 and 2013, would make an appearance in the market as would usually be the case. Commentators said it was out of concern that he get an embarrassingly cool response from his old supporters.
Video of the occasion shows shoppers and vendors applauding the man, but the apprehensions that were expressed by this demographic of voters are those foremost in the minds of Israeli electors: the price of housing and the cost of living.
One café owner who served Mr. Netanyahu a latte, reportedly gave him his change as a large handful of coins. She told reporters it was "to remind him that while he invokes the Iranian [nuclear] threat, we, the small business owners, have a daily struggle to earn even small change."
There once was a time when a party or leader could count on continuing support from those who voted for them in the past. In Israel, more than in most democracies, history of voting was the best determinant of future voting – no more.
Menachem Lazar of the Panels Politics Institute that conducts surveys for the Knesset Channel and the Maariv newspaper told the al-Monitor news service that the most prominent characteristic of Israeli voting patterns in recent years is "lack of party loyalty." Even mainstream voters today, he says, are shopping for the party that best answers their needs, and they will change their minds frequently. Those needs today are economic, it seems, and the cohorts that are most affected by the high cost of living – the young and the less affluent – are also the fastest growing segments of Israeli society.
Many of these voters have been lured away from Likud by a new party called Kulanu (meaning All of Us) led by a former cabinet minister, Moshe Kahlon, who focuses almost entirely on economic issues and the importance of competition. As communications minister in the Netanyahu government, Mr. Kahlon brought down the cost of cellphone usage by some 90 per cent. No wonder people love him.
Mr. Herzog, whose Zionist Union bloc – an amalgam of the Labour Party and the Hatnua Party of Tzipi Livni – leads in the polls, also is affected by this "shifting sand" phenomenon, as the Israelis call it.
Young and less affluent voters – mostly Ashkenazi voters in his case – are tempted by Mr. Kahlon's economics as well as by the Yesh Atid Party of former finance minister Yair Lapid.
Viewed as one of the more hip politicians, Mr. Lapid, a former newscaster, won the second largest bloc of seats in the 2013 election, his debut in politics. This time around, however, having served in the finance portfolio, he wears some of the blame for Israel's difficult economic circumstances and his own numbers have fallen.
While Israel's consumer price index was down slightly last year, basic goods in Israel are 12 per cent more expensive than the OECD average, while gross annual salaries are $10,000 (U.S.) lower.
As well, housing prices in Israel have doubled since 2007, putting home ownership out of reach for many Israelis. Rents also have risen sharply.
Perhaps the demographic with the largest growth in this election will be the Arab Israeli vote. Not only does it benefit from a more rapidly growing population than that of Jewish Israelis in general, but its numbers are swelling also because of a dramatic increase in the willingness of Arab citizens to vote.
For years, the Arab vote, divided among four or more parties, was mired at the bottom of election tallies, counting for little but a small voice of opposition. Thanks to an increase in the threshold of votes required for a party to win any seats (now 3.25 per cent of the total votes cast, up from the previous 2 per cent) the main Arab parties have merged into a Joint List that looks as if it may garner the third-highest number of seats in the Knesset.
Rather than reducing the incentive to vote and eliminating Arabs from the parliament as some Israelis on the right had hoped, the higher threshold has given Arab citizens a greater incentive to vote.
In 2013, only 57 per cent voted – 11 percentage points lower than the turnout by Jewish Israelis. This time, close to 70 per cent of Arab Israelis are expected to cast ballots, according to a Tel Aviv University study released last week.
Interestingly, the issue that concerns these voters most is not so much political as it is economic. Arab voters also want the tools for overcoming the high cost of living, and the lower standard of living faced by their community in general.
Another segment enjoying big growth is that of ultra-Orthodox voters. The group that once shunned voting for a secular government will likely cast ballots in record numbers this time. Encouraged by rabbis who say it would be sacrilegious not to vote, these electors are divided among three parties – one for Sephardi, or oriental Jews; one for Ashkenazi, or European Jews; and a smaller, new party for more extreme ultranationalists from either background.
The two main religious parties would almost certainly be willing to join a coalition led by either Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Herzog, provided the price is right. Their voters want help with housing too and with the cost of living. In their case, however, they also want to see support for their communities' religious schools and continued exemption for a large number of their young men from military service.