Last authorised opinion polls suggest PM Benjamin Netanyahu heading for next term in office. Meanwhile, the country's Arab minority is being urged to boycott election over Israel's controversial"nation-state" law.
But while most polls saw Gantz's list as scooping slightly more votes than Likud, neither party was predicted to win over 25 percent of seats in parliament. But it found that overall the right and centre-right would control 68 seats compared to 52 from the centre and left. Less than half are expected to score the 3.25 percent threshold of total votes cast needed to enter the legislature so despite voters' stated preferences many of them will never see a seat i n parliament.
On the basis of those talks he asks the person he judges has the best chances, which may not necessarily be the leader of the largest party. Leaders of Israel's main Arab parties are pushing for their voters to turn out, fearing a boycott would weaken the 21-percent Arab minority's representation in parliament, and boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election chances.
According to figures released by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 1.9 million Arabs in Israel's roughly 9 million population at the start of 2019. Most were Muslims, Christians or Druze. Jews made up 74.3 percent of the population.Despite holding Israeli citizenship, many Arabs say their communities, from the fertile Galilee in the north to the Negev desert in the south, face discrimination in areas such as health, education and housing.
Hours before the polls closed on election day that year, Netanyahu said that Arabs were flocking "in droves" to cast ballots."The nation-state law was like a wake-up call for many people, making them realise this country will never be a country for all its citizens," said Muhannad Abu Ghosh, 42, a pro-boycott activist from Haifa.
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