Elections have been moved up because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted them to be moved up. He wanted it that way and had his reasons for doing so. But we should understand that it was not the lack of a national budget that caused the early elections, but rather a constellation of political opportunities. The budget debate will be passed on to the next government. It is widely assumed that the prime minister and all polls show he will likely be the next prime minister too will have to approve an austerity budget. Potential partners in the next government will not want to endanger their current positions with the electorate by supporting such a budget now, when they could be hurt at the polls. Netanyahu enters the elections with an advantage. As opposed to the traditional election format of two rivals vying for the lead role Peres-Begin, Rabin-Shamir, Peres-Netanyahu, Barak-Sharon and Netanyahu-Livni this time Netanyahu is campaigning as an incumbent with no clear formidable rival opposing him. This advantage enhances his image and may represent a huge electoral benefit for him. However, Netanyahu's advantage is somewhat curtailed by the fact that polls currently show he is not ahead by a landslide, and his trust level is not exceptionally high across the entire political landscape. Still, no one can deny that he currently heads the largest bloc in the Knesset the national-religious bloc which has consistently grown with each election. I have read that officials in the Prime Minister's Office are concerned that center-Left parties may unite and form a single party for the upcoming elections. That will most likely not happen, but if it does, the result would be a potential weakening of each party's strong points rather than a true unified bloc. The Right will retain its traditional strongholds. But Yesh Atid ("There is a Future") chairman Yair Lapid has the ability to be a tie-breaker, as well as the ability to jump from one political camp to another. He is not involved in dirty day-to-day politics, and appears to many young constituents (and not just to them) as a clean candidate from another planet, one with whom they can identify. The Internet, Big Brother and television are what they understand best, and Lapid may be their potential cultural hero, if he uses those tools to his advantage. Labor chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich is gaining a lot of followers with her clear and steady messages. She has given up on a political-defense platform because her aim is to concentrate instead on Israel's social issues. The fact that she does not present definitive political positions may tilt undecided voters in her favor, although with such an approach she may also lose those votes to Meretz and more left-wing parties. The Likud, which is the central component of the right-wing bloc, may grow if it moves toward the center of the political spectrum. If this happens, Netanyahu can reduce the damage to the image of his party as a right-wing party run by the Elkin-Feiglin-Yariv Levin team, whose positions are not supported by a majority in the country. The fact that Netanyahu announced the dissolution of the Knesset and early elections does not give him an automatic advantage. But there is no doubt that his position as a dominant candidate gives the right-religious-wing bloc a better chance to continue running the country after the upcoming elections. On the other hand, a determined group of politicians, who have had enough of this government, is ready to change the face of the country and the way it is currently being run.
