Shas is facing one of the worst electoral defeats in its history, with party officials blaming its increasingly hardline stance on haredi military enlistment and calling for a fundamental overhaul of the party, as the scale of its losses became clear on Thursday, two days after the election.
The party is currently slated to receive six seats in the 26th Knesset.
The party, which had grown accustomed to maintaining its political strength and even increasing its support over the years, has suffered a particularly painful electoral blow. In the 2022 election, Shas received 392,964 votes, representing 8.25% of valid ballots, and secured 11 Knesset seats. In the latest election, according to the vote count excluding double-envelope ballots, the party has received only around 275,000 votes, or approximately 5.3% of valid ballots.
This represents a loss of roughly 118,000 votes, a decline of about 30% in the number of voters supporting the party. According to estimates within Shas, once the vote count and allocation of seats are completed, the party could fall to as few as six Knesset seats.
For Shas, the defeat is especially severe. A party whose electoral base has a high birth rate might reasonably have expected its support to grow naturally, potentially increasing its representation to 12 or even 13 seats. Instead, Shas finds itself facing the prospect of securing barely half the parliamentary representation it had hoped for.
The recriminations and soul-searching have now begun. In internal party discussions, sharp criticism is being directed at the political course Shas has pursued in recent years, particularly during the war, regarding haredi (ultra-Orthodox) enlistment and its attitude toward the IDF and the state.
"Extremist elements have taken control of us," a Shas official said. "Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef led a very hardline and extreme approach on the draft issue, and other rabbis pulled the party in the same direction. We've reached a point where there's no difference between us and the Jerusalem Faction. Is this the Shas we want to be?"
The criticism is not directed solely at the rabbis. Some within the party believe the political leadership went along with the growing extremism rather than attempting to restrain it.
During the war, Shas MKs were sent to visit haredi men held in military prison after being arrested over draft evasion. There are allegations that the visits were imposed on the MKs and carried out against their wishes.
One of the most prominent examples of the approach that drew criticism was a series of statements by Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef opposing military enlistment. Among other things, he called on haredi men not to enlist even if they were not studying Torah and urged them to flush military draft notices down the toilet.
His remarks sparked public controversy at a time when IDF soldiers were fighting on multiple fronts, and hundreds of families had lost loved ones.
Shas 'revolution'
Meanwhile, despite the severe electoral result and reports suggesting he might step down, associates of Shas chairman Arye Deri insist that he has no intention of going anywhere.
On the contrary, following one of the worst defeats in Shas's history, Deri intends to lead the party's recovery process himself.
"We're going to carry out a revolution, a restart of the party," a Shas official said. "We were dragged into extremism, and we're going to shake it off. We'll bring Shas back to what it always was, a party of the Sephardi, haredi and traditional public. It will be a long process, but we're setting out on that path. We've been through difficult times before and recovered. We'll manage to put things right, with God's help."
Follow us on GoogleSource: The Jerusalem Post · YEHUDA SHLEZINGER
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