Speculation of any further shakeup in Israel’s political landscape faded Monday night, as a series of large and small parties submitted their final slates for next month’s election, confirming that they will each run alone.
Talk of possible mergers had mounted in both the pro- and anti-Benjamin Netanyahu camps in recent days, fueled by a succession of polls that showed neither bloc winning a majority of the Knesset, alongside fears that small parties could fall short of winning office entirely.
But with a Tuesday deadline looming for parties to confirm their lists of candidates, several declined to unite, leaving the electoral picture much the same as it has been for weeks.
The biggest question mark now concerns the prime minister’s own Likud party, which is expected to submit its slate on Tuesday, hours before the deadline.
The bloc hoping to unseat the prime minister appears to be all but set in stone, as frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party submitted its roster on Monday. So did B’Yachad, the opposition party led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, which had announced its list on Sunday. The two other main opposition parties, the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu and left-wing Democrats, also submitted their slates.
