The two major haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), announced on Sunday that they signed a surplus vote-sharing agreement ahead of the October 27 elections and pledged continued cooperation in the next Knesset.
Shas is the Sephardi haredi faction led by MK Arye Deri, while UTJ is the Ashkenazi haredi party led by newly appointed chairman MK Yakov Asher. Both parties have been key partners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
Announcing their signed surplus vote-sharing agreement, Deri and Asher stated that it reflected the “continued cooperation between the factions, in accordance with the instructions of the generation’s leading rabbis and Torah sages.”
They added that the two parties would “continue to work in full cooperation and present a united front in the next Knesset on core issues concerning the preservation of the Torah world, the status of yeshiva students, and the strengthening of religious educational institutions.”
In a surplus vote-sharing agreement, the two parties pool their surplus votes after the initial allocation of Knesset seats following the elections. If the combined surplus is enough to secure an additional seat, one party can receive it, potentially strengthening the bloc to which the parties belong.
The deal is only relevant if both parties pass the electoral threshold. Both Shas and UTJ have recently been polling above the electoral threshold, at around seven to eight seats.
Haredi factions under fire for anti-draft stance
Amid Shas and UTJ’s longstanding partnership in Netanyahu’s coalition, they have faced recent criticism over their stance regarding haredi conscription to the military amid the IDF’s severe manpower crisis.
The haredi parties encouraged Netanyahu’s coalition to advance legislation that critics argued would not increase haredi enlistment during the government’s term.
The haredi parties had also boycotted coalition voting, stating that they would not cooperate with Netanyahu’s coalition until there was progress on contentious legislation they had been pushing for.
Ahead of the surplus vote-sharing agreement submission deadline, other parties in Netanyahu’s bloc have also signed deals.
Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party signed a surplus voting-sharing agreement with the Religious Zionist Party, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, on Tuesday.
Ben-Gvir, Winter, and Hendel all remain with no vote-sharing deal
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party – also part of Netanyahu’s coalition bloc – subsequently stated that Likud had refused to sign a surplus-vote agreement with it.
It remains unclear whether Otzma Yehudit will sign a surplus vote agreement before the approaching submission deadline.
On Tuesday, Otzma Yehudit had also accused Likud of seeking to form a unity government with Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar party and the leading candidate for prime minister in the opposition bloc in recent polling.
Other parties yet to have signed a surplus vote-sharing agreement include Ofer Winter’s People of Israel faction and Yoaz Hendel’s the Reservists-Economic party, which have recently polled either just above or below the electoral threshold.
Meanwhile, all the major parties in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu signed surplus vote-sharing agreements in September, with the stated aim of increasing the number of seats won by the bloc.
Two agreements were signed at the time: one between Eisenkot’s Yashar and Yair Golan’s The Democrats, and the other between Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu.