Two days before the elections, Likud candidate former MK Amichai Chikli sat down with Israel National News to discuss the upcoming elections, his former party mate Ayelet Shaked, and more.
Chikli begins by describing how he's been spending the last days in preparation for election day. "There's a lot of tension, we are all over the place, speaking to youth in pre-army academies, talking on the phone with people who are debating whether to go to vote or not. I spent the whole Saturday going from one synagogue to the next, and from there I went to speak to potential voters in Modiin. We are working very hard."
Regarding his former party-mate, Ayelet Shaked, who is insisting on running despite the unflattering poll results, Chikli says that he thinks she's irresponsible. "I think she needs to give up, and maybe get ready for the next time. She is now risking many votes, we even can lose a seat because of her private adventure. To the people watching us now, I tell them: look, if you want a Zionist government, a right-wing government, vote Likud and if it's difficult vote Religious Zionism, but for sure don't go to the left, to Benny Gantz or throw away your vote and vote for the Jewish Home which won't cross the threshold."
We also asked Chikli about his criticism of Netanyahu which he expressed back when he was in Yamina. "To be honest, at first I thought that we can challenge Netanyahu with a party from the right. That was the idea of Yamina, and we said that the Likud is not doing enough. But we saw what happened, Naftali Bennett established a leftist government, a coalition with the entire left, and Ayelet Shaked was with him. So the idea of Yamina collapsed and now my mission is, with the same view and agenda, to do it from within the Likud and to make sure that the Likud is going to do different things in the Negev, in the Galilee, in Area C, where we had criticism. But I must say that there were things that the Likud was doing great."
Chikli says that his mission if elected is to work on the areas that he criticized the Likud about, he repeats: "The Negev, Gallilee, Area C, and sovereignty, that's my area, my responsibility".