June 18, 2013

Israel's Likud to vote on merger with Lieberman

BY: AP Staff Writer OCTOBER 29, 2012 | MODIFIED: OCTOBER 29, 2012 AT 6:32 AM
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Photo -   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman shake hands in front the media after giving a statement in Jerusalem, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Netanyahu said his Likud Party will join forces with the hard-line party of his Foreign Minister in upcoming parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman shake hands in front the media after giving a statement in Jerusalem, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Netanyahu said his Likud Party will join forces with the hard-line party of his Foreign Minister in upcoming parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's governing Likud Party will be deciding on whether to merge with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's nationalist Israel Beiteinu faction.

The union proposed by Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to win approval, though some moderates in Likud are opposed to it.

A poll released ahead of the vote on Monday evening shows a merged Likud-Israel Beiteinu party could be far ahead of rivals in Jan. 22 elections.

The TNS/Teleseker poll of 500 people, conducted for the Maariv newspaper and published on Monday, gave the merged party 43 of parliament's 120 seats. Ultra-Orthodox parties that traditionally align with Likud would win 24, potentially handing Netanyahu a comfortable hard-line majority of 67 seats.

The survey had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

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