Israeli general election D-12... Opposition leader Eisenkot has an 'advantage' over Netanyahu

(Cairo = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Sang-hoon = With the Israeli general election (27th) about 10 days away, a public opinion poll was released on the 15th (local time) showing that the Yashar party of former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, the leading opposition party, is ahead of the ruling Likud party led by current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a clear gap.

However, neither ruling or opposition party is expected to fail to secure a majority of seats, so Arab political parties and independents are expected to hold the key to forming the next government.

According to a poll of 500 voters (sampling error ±4.4 percentage points) conducted over two days from the previous day by Zman Israel, the Hebrew-language sister paper of the local daily Times of Israel, the anti-Netanyahu Jewish party bloc was predicted to win 54 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, and the pro-Netanyahu bloc was predicted to win 49 seats.

Both camps fell short of the majority (61 seats) needed to form a government.

Compared to the same survey a week ago (anti-Netanyahu 55 seats, pro-Netanyahu 51 seats), both sides fell slightly, leading to a stalemate.

As for the remaining seats, Arab parties were expected to enter the National Assembly, taking 13 seats, and the non-partisan Reserve Army Party, which does not belong to any camp, took 4 seats.

The most striking aspect of this survey is the gap in approval ratings by political party.

Eisenkot's Yashar party is expected to win 26 seats, widening the gap with Netanyahu's Likud party (20 seats). Last week's survey showed that Yashar would secure 24 seats and Likud would secure 20 seats.

In addition, the opposition party B'yachad, led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, ranked third with 11 seats, and Israel Beitenu, a hard-right opposition party, ranked fourth with nine seats.

Next, four parties, including the pro-Netanyahu ultra-Orthodox party Shas and the Union for Torah Judaism (UTJ), the left-leaning Democratic Party, and the Arab 'Joint List', were expected to take up 8 seats each.

The far-right pro-Netanyahu party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and devout Zionism are expected to secure 7 and 6 seats, respectively, and the pan-Arab Islamist party Ra'am is expected to secure 5 seats.

On the other hand, the right-wing Israel People's Party (2.8%) led by Ofer Winter and the centrist Blue and White Party (1.2%) are predicted to not be able to overcome the minimum vote percentage (3.25%) to enter the National Assembly.

The Times of Israel analyzed, "Although the results of public opinion polls, which are pouring in almost every day in the months leading up to the general election, cannot be completely trusted, when taken together, they can serve as an indicator of the overall political landscape and the direction of voting sentiment."