BICOM

Both the Labour Party and Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah launched their respective campaigns over the weekend, taking direct aim at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At an event at the party’s campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv, senior Labour parliamentarians Isaac Herzog and Eitan Cabel and electoral newcomer Itzik Shmuley announced that the party’s campaign will be centred around the slogan “Bibi [Netanyahu] is good for the rich – Shelly is good for you,” in a reference to party leader Shelly Yachimovich. Cabel said that the economy and social issues “is the topic that brought us where we are today, brought [Yachimovich] where she is today, and will bring us a higher number of seats,” while Shmuley, a former prominent leader of the summer 2011 social protests commented, “what started in the streets will end at the voting booth. That’s how you make a change in a democratic society.”

Meanwhile, the Hatnuah Party headed by Tzipi Livni also announced over the weekend the slogans which will front its campaign. “Bibi-Lieberman Danger, Livni Hope” and “Bibi-Lieberman International Boycott, Livni Peace Agreement” aim to highlight the party’s focus on diplomatic issues, while targeting the record of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. The party’s campaign manager Merav Parsi Tzadok said that “Our campaign message supports the idea for which Hatnuah was founded: Creating an alternative to the Netanyahu government’s dangerous policies.”

Both parties criticised a decision taken yesterday by Netanyahu’s government to allow 1,300 ultra-orthodox students to perform national service instead of military service. Representatives of Hatnuah called it a “populist move” aimed to please the Shas Party, while Labour’s Eitan Cabel said Netanyahu is “continuing to evade every essential decision regarding our life in this country.”

A poll published this morning in Haaretz indicates that the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu joint list headed by Netanyahu is on course for a comfortable election victory and is set to secure almost 40 members of Knesset. Its closest rival is the Labour Party, which the poll indicates will win just under 20 mandates. Meanwhile, 81 per cent of respondents said they expected Netanyahu to be the next prime minister when given the choice of Netanyahu, Livni and Yachimovich.