"Ace" of Smotrich? Even Feiglin failed to break the Finance Minister's curse

The union between Religious Zionism and Zehut yielded six seats in the 2026 elections, five for Religious Zionism and one for Feiglin. Smotrich failed to replicate his 7 seats from 2022, and the alliance did not break the 'Finance Minister's curse'.

The union between Religious Zionism, led by Bezalel Smotrich, and the Zehut party, led by Moshe Feiglin, yielded six seats for the joint list in the 2026 elections, according to emerging results. Of these, five seats belong to Religious Zionism representatives and one to Zehut. For Feiglin, this is a significant achievement after being left out of the Knesset in the 2019 elections, but he is expected to be the sole representative of his party. The alliance helped Smotrich stay above the electoral threshold, after Religious Zionism struggled in polls before the union. However, Smotrich failed to replicate his party's strength from the previous elections, when it received 7 seats as part of the united list with Otzma Yehudit and Noam. The article notes that the 'Finance Minister's curse' was not broken this time either, according to which parties of finance ministers lose power in elections following their tenure, as happened to Yair Lapid, Moshe Kahlon, and Avigdor Lieberman.