After poor electoral showing, Bayit Yehudi faces internal strife
After a campaign that began with high hopes but ended with just eight seats, Naftali Bennett is now having to face internal unrest; ‘it has blown up in our faces,’ party members are saying.
The dismal electoral performance by Bayit Yehudi has caused shock waves in the party, which began the campaign with optimistic surveys predicting as many as 18 seats, and finished with a terribly disappointing eight seats.
As well as the coalition negotiations Bennett will have to deal with in the coming days, he also has to face severe agitation within his party by the Knesset members gearing up for another term, only to find out that they didn’t make the cut.
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"These elections have shown the magician in the political system is not Naftali Bennett," said one Bayit Yhudi MK with irony, "and there is a strong sense that we made every possible mistake with our campaign."
Once the voting had closed, two leading faction members, Uri Ariel and Nissan Slomiansky, huddled together at the party’s Kfar Maccabiah headquarters, calculators at their fingertips, waiting for the numbers to come in.
Party officials say that they are very disappointed at the way in which the election campaign was organized. Their conversations with party members on the Knesset list have even alluded to threatening Bennett with a technical split before the next government is formed, and negotiating separately with Netanyahu.
Bennett held a private meeting Wednesday with members of his party in an attempt to reduce the intensity of the flames. One of the demands he faces is to announce that party members who are appointed to ministerial positions will resign from the Knesset to make room for others on the list.
This potential move is giving hope to prominent party members Shuli Mualem and Avi Wortzman, both of whom failed to secure a Knesset seat.
And as if Bennett did not have enough troubles, the party now faces a deficit of millions of shekels, as it had planned its election budget on the assumption that it would win 14-15 seats, but will only receive funding for eight Knesset members.
"It has all blown up in our faces," said a Bayit Yehudi source. "The party's Knesset members worked very hard throughout the campaign, but did not take part in any of the decision-making, and so it is only natural that they are criticizing this failure. There is no doubt tha the results demand some soul-searching."
Bennett himself referred to the election results at a memorial service Wednesday to mark 30 days since the death of party minister Uri Orbach. He recalled that Orbach used to compare the Bahyit Yehudi to a bridge - not the kind that one walks on, but the kind that connects.
"Uri was wrong in this respect," said Bennett with a bitter smile. "We are also a bridge to walk on, but to get to a better place."
There is no dispute that Bennett is entering coalition negotiations in a far less powerful position than the one they had planned.
At the beginning of the campaign, Bennett’s circle had even entertained the possibility that he would be appointed defense minister after the elections. He himself had announced that he planned to give the Internal Security Ministry Ayelet Shaked, and party officials also touted the Justice Ministry as a favorite target too.
But with final results in, Bennett will find it hard to demand the portfolios he wanted, and will have to instead focus on his strict diplomatic guidelines: no freezes in settlement construction, no territorial withdrawals or concessions to the Palestinians and no release of terrorists.
