- Kadima 28
- Labor 20
- Shas 13
- Yisrael Beiteinu 12
- [sic] Likud 11
- Ichud Leumi / NRP 9
- Gil 7
- United Torah Judaism 6
- Meretz 4
- United Arab List 4
- Balad 3
- Hadash 3
And the other 19 parties don't make it.
That's a shame about Meretz. I was hoping for a Kadima-Labor-Meretz-Gil coalition without Shas, but those four parties only add up to 59 seats, so Shas in the government will be inevitable. It looks like Avigdor Lieberman will be the official opposition leader.
We'll announce the results for the March Madness pool soon. Right now, it's looking very close, so I want to give it another day or so, because one seat shifting in any direction could change everything.
In the pool, a number of people answered Gil for the first tiebreaker question (Of the parties that don't get seats, which will be the closest?), but only one person guessed that Gil would end up in the Knesset.
However, no matter how far off your picks were, you can rest assured that you did better than random guessing. I had a random-number algorithm enter the pool, guessing each seat at random. It predicted Prime Minister Azmi Bishara, whose Balad party would lead with 8 seats. It had Aleh Yarok, Lev, and the Jewish National Front tying for second place with 7 seats. The random-number algorithm is quite firmly in last place, so there are no (human) losers.
I suppose it's too much to hope for an Arab party or two to join the hypothetical Kadima-Labor-Meretz-Gil coalition?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm going to have trouble taking Gil seriously as long as I keep associating that word with the currency used in Final Fantasy games.