Israel's 2 Centrist Parties Say Agreed To Merge Lists To Challenge Netanyahu In April Vote

Fakhir Rizvi Published February 22, 2019 | 12:27 AM

The leaders of Israel's top-polling centrist political parties, the Israel Resilience party and Yesh Atid, said in a joint statement on Thursday that they had agreed to merge their party lists in the April elections to challenge the ruling Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd February, 2019) The leaders of Israel's top-polling centrist political parties, the Israel Resilience party and Yesh Atid, said in a joint statement on Thursday that they had agreed to merge their party lists in the April elections to challenge the ruling Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"From a feeling of national responsibility, it was decided by Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and [Moshe] Ya'alon to create a united list that will become the new governing party of Israel," the statement read as quoted by the Times of Israel newspaper.

According to the statement, the new party plans to announce a new team of security and social leaders that will "ensure the security of the nation and reunite the fractured elements of Israeli society."

In December, Netanyahu called snap elections for April 9 amid corruption allegations against him. Initially, the parliamentary elections were slated for November 2019.