Shock and silence in the Shas leadership: with 91% of valid votes counted, the party is struggling to absorb the scale of the collapse. The updated figures give Shas just six seats, with a slim chance of winning a seventh once double-envelope ballots are tallied.
The numbers paint a grim picture for the Sephardi party. Shas has won 273,708 votes so far. In the last election, for the 25th Knesset, the party took 392,964 votes. That is a loss of over 100,000 voters and the comparison does not yet account for natural growth in the chareidi population, estimated at some 30,000 new voters.
The voting map shows Shas took a double blow: it weakened in chareidi cities, losing voters to United Torah Judaism and to Itamar Ben-Gvir; and it collapsed in peripheral towns and villages, among the so-called "people of the fields" and the traditional voters who 'wear transparent kippas'.
The scale of the surprise was visible on election night itself. The party had rented a large events hall and set up an elaborate stage with an orchestra to celebrate the results, but as the first real counts came in and the extent of the decline became clear, headquarters made a dramatic and unusual decision: activists were asked to leave, and the event was cancelled outright.
Just before the exit polls were published, party chairman Aryeh Deri sent out a single message attempting to project confidence: "The exit-poll results show large gaps, so we will need to wait for the real results. From the data in Shas's hands, Shas will show a very good result, reflecting the tremendous work done in the field. Dear activists, you worked hard, and there is reward for your labour. Go rest, and tomorrow morning we will rise to the real results." But since then, as the real numbers became clearer, the party has been completely silent.
In conversations with Kikar Hashabbat, senior figures in the party do not hide their frustration at the huge gap between the reports flowing in from field headquarters and the reality in the ballot boxes. "No one expected such a result," a senior source said. "When the polls closed, we were certain we would win at least ten seats. We are in shock. Something did not work right in the flow of information, and we did not identify that there was a problem until the real results started coming in."
Among senior activists, too, tempers are running high. "I cannot digest that we have become the little sister of United Torah Judaism," one well-known Shas activist says. "It is a shock, a collapse. What happened here? Something did not work, and someone needs to pay the price. Aryeh Deri needs to recalculate the route, to know who misled him all these years and especially in the days of the election."
The defeat at the polls is expected to have long-term consequences for the character and conduct of the party in the coming years. A Shas MK admits the strategic failure: "There is no doubt we lost the 'people of the fields.' We have become a chareidi party, no longer a party that represents both publics. We failed in the attempt to bring home the transparent-kippah wearers."
According to the MK, the new reality will dictate the party's steps going forward: "We will need to conduct ourselves accordingly in the coming years, especially in the difficult decisions on the draft law, with a clear understanding that our voters from now on are chareidi voters almost entirely."
