Arab Parties Sign Vote-Sharing Deal Ahead of Elections

The Joint List and Ra'am, two Arab political alliances, signed a surplus vote agreement on Friday aimed at preventing wasted votes in the upcoming elections. The agreement stipulates a "fair and clean election campaign, without slander, defamation, incitement, or fraud," and urges activists and supporters to maintain respectful discourse despite political differences. The deal will be submitted to the Central Elections Committee after party candidacies are approved.

In the previous election, the three Arab parties ran separately without a surplus vote agreement, leading to Balad failing to pass the electoral threshold in 2022. Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas stated that the goal is a campaign focused on "plans and the way forward, not on people," emphasizing a desire to present the public with proposals and service plans without "clashes, defamation, and slander."

This agreement follows similar pacts made by "change bloc" parties, including Yisrael Beiteinu, and Yachad with the Democrats. Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of Yachad, took credit for organizing the bloc, stating his efforts facilitated these internal surplus vote agreements as a lesson from past elections. His party highlighted that this ensures every vote for change will go to one of the "change parties," preventing vote loss and maximizing the bloc's strength against the "default government of October 7."

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Likud party is expected to sign a surplus vote agreement with the Religious Zionism party, complicating matters for Otzma Yehudit, which reportedly does not wish to sign an agreement with the "Am Israel" party. A surplus vote agreement allows two lists to be treated as a single entity for the distribution of remaining mandates after the initial allocation, ensuring that votes not sufficient for a full mandate for one party can contribute to the other, thereby maximizing their combined seat count.