Deputy Transport Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), warned Tuesday that voting for smaller “satellite parties” in the right-wing bloc – in her words – could lead to an easy win for the Left in the upcoming elections.
“We’ve seen in the last government what happened when a right-wing party is strong but Likud is weak; the government broke up after a year and a half,” Hotovely stated, in a special interview with Arutz Sheva. “You have to understand that a party that rules the government is the one who forges the way [to a coalition – ed.]. If there is a strong right-wing bloc but a low voter turnout for Likud, we will once again have a weak government.”
Hotovely, ever campaigning for Likud, opined that voting for smaller right-wing parties would be a mistake.
“Rightists have to understand that you cannot play the system by force of will – if you want a right-wing government you should strengthen Netanyahu and the Likud, and that strengthening another right-wing party may lead to support for the opposition, or the establishment of a government made up of many factors in which each tries to pull the government to do things its way.”
Hotovely added that a leftist campaign against poverty in Israel, which points fingers squarely at Netanyahu, is simply more mudslinging before the elections.
“It is clear that the Left now understands that they can not defeat us in the political arena, everyone understands that the illusions of the Left failed, no one talks about peace, you do not hear from them even a little about the concept of a peace process,” Hotovely stated. “There is a deep understanding that the Right won the public consciousness and everyone wants to vote for a strong leader who will lead wisely.”
“So they think our weakness is in the economic field? They just forget that unemployment had doubled during a Leftist rule, with Ehud Barak more than 10% of Israelis were unemployed,” she added. “There is no denying that Israel is facing a poverty problem and social disparities. The question is what policy is like here – socialist policies we have seen have failed – what were the results in Europe?”
Hotovely stated that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “could lead the economy to stability.”
“We need to understand that there is no magic solution and no wizards for this, as [Yesh Atid Chairman Yair] Lapid and [Yitzhak] Herzog claim,” she said. “In contrast, we in Likud were able to raise the standard of living in Israel dramatically, also regarding the minimum wage, free education law, and tax deductions for parents.”
Hotovely’s calls to vote Likud follow a poll last week in which Likud showed an upswing in Knesset mandates, but the right-wing bloc overall suffered in comparison to previous polls.
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