Arab turnout resolves the Knesset battle.. Will high participation upset Netanyahu’s calculations?

Tel Aviv - Ofoq News - The voter turnout rate in the Arab community is expected to be one of the decisive factors in the twenty-sixth Knesset elections, which are being held today (Tuesday).

Before the current elections, opinion poll experts expect a significant increase in voter turnout in Arab society. Youssef McLeda, CEO of the polling company Statnet, expects the participation rate to reach between 68% and 69%.

As for David Dror, director of Askaria, he expects a participation rate of about 65%, which, according to him, means that the Arab parties will get about 15 seats.

In closed discussions, Netanyahu spoke of a scenario in which turnout reaches 75%, warning that in this case, Arab parties could win between 16 and 17 seats.

In the previous elections, which took place in November 2022, the participation rate reached 53.2% of eligible voters in Arab and Druze areas, which is a higher percentage compared to the historic low recorded in the previous year, which reached 44.6%.

In the five electoral cycles held between 2019 and 2022, the average voter turnout rate in the Arab community was 54.2%, compared to 69.6% in the general population.

Electoral participation in Arab societies declined from 75% in 1999 to 53–57% between 2006 and 2013, before rising to 63.5% in 2015 with the formation of the Joint List. After falling to 49.2% in April 2019, it rose again, reaching a peak of 64.8% in 2020, coinciding with the Joint List winning 15 seats.

These differences directly affect the distribution of seats. There are about one million qualified voters in Arab society, and increasing participation in the elections by ten percentage points leads to the addition of about 100,000 voters, or more than two seats. The Left Alliance estimates that increasing the participation rate in the elections in the Arab community to about 60% is one of the necessary conditions to increase their chances of obtaining 61 seats.