Balad to pursue joint Arab list with Hadash and Ta'al, excluding Ra'am for now

Balad said it will focus in the coming period on building a joint slate with Hadash and Ta'al, after talks with Ra'am stalled. The party said it still intends to try again later to bring Ra'am in, depending on political developments.

According to Balad, the priority is a three-party list made up of Hadash, Ta'al and Balad. It said negotiations over a broader four-party alliance ran into deadlock, and that Ra'am has frozen its participation in the talks.

Balad said Ra'am representatives introduced new demands, and that the sides also disagreed over how ministerial or organizational roles would be divided among the parties. The party said this is why the effort to form a four-way joint list reached an impasse.

Hadash offered a different explanation, saying the difficulty stems from Ra'am’s desire to join a future “change government” after the upcoming election, in line with coordination it says is linked to Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman. Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas said his party wants to exert political influence by joining a change government, and wanted Hadash and Ta'al to provide political backing for such a government as part of the power-sharing arrangement among the Arab parties.