Smotrich and Religious Zionism Face Electoral Drop Amid Finance Minister Curse
Exit polls project that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party will secure five mandates, falling short of previous results and reinforcing the political curse historically faced by treasury chiefs.
Recent exit polls indicate that the joint electoral list of Religious Zionism, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Zehut, led by Moshe Feiglin, is projected to win six mandates. Breaking down the results, Religious Zionism secures five mandates—with one mandate allocated to Feiglin—marking a decline from the seven seats it won in the 2022 elections as part of a joint slate with Otzma Yehudit and Noam.
It appears that Smotrich has been unable to break the enduring political curse associated with the role of finance minister. According to historical trends, whenever a party leader assumes the critical portfolio of the finance ministry, their political faction inevitably suffers a downturn in the subsequent parliamentary elections. To date, no finance minister has managed to escape this pattern, and Smotrich appears to be no exception.
This phenomenon is relatively modern, largely because party leaders serving concurrently as finance ministers is a development of recent decades. Until the rotation government established in 1984, finance ministers traditionally hailed from the ruling party. The paradigm shifted in 2013 when Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, captured 19 mandates and secured the Treasury portfolio during coalition negotiations. Since then, with the exception of a brief period under Israel Katz, the finance ministry has consistently been held by the leader of a coalition partner rather than the ruling party.
Historical data underscores the severe electoral cost borne by party leaders who helm the Treasury. Yesh Atid dropped from 19 to 11 mandates in 2015, Kulanu plummeted from 10 seats to 4 in April 2019, Yisrael Beytenu slipped from 7 mandates in 2021 to 6 in 2022, and now Religious Zionism has experienced a 29 percent decline. Analysts note that Benjamin Netanyahu faced a similar fate when he served as Ariel Sharon's finance minister before leading Likud to a historic low of 12 mandates in the 2006 elections.
