Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party has edged ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud to become Israel's largest party, winning 24 seats to Likud's 23 in the latest KAN News poll, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad remained in third place with 14 seats, while the overall balance between the political blocs showed little change, the poll survey found. The opposition bloc is projected to secure 57 seats, compared with 52 for the current governing coalition. Arab parties are expected to win a combined 11 seats.
The poll followed Monday's closely contested Likud primaries, which determined the party's Knesset slate ahead of the upcoming general election. The primaries came after the Likud Central Committee approved changes giving Netanyahu the authority to select eight of the first 30 positions on the party list.
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Energy Minister Eli Cohen topped the elected slate, followed by Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Transportation Minister Miri Regev and coalition chairman Ofir Katz.
The KAN poll also found mixed public views of the new Likud list. Forty-four per cent of respondents said it was neither better nor worse than the previous slate, while 18% considered it better and 14% said it was worse.
Meanwhile, Yair Golan's Democrats were projected to win 10 seats. Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit and Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu were each projected to secure nine seats, while United Torah Judaism was on eight and Shas on seven.
The poll was conducted by the Kantar Institute on August 18 among 558 respondents, with a margin of error of 4.2%, according to The Jerusalem Post.
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