Israel’s Supreme Court reinstates Arab parties in the race for the October 27 elections

Arab parties will take part in the parliamentary elections on October 27 after Israel’s Supreme Court on Friday overturned the Central Elections Committee’s decision to exclude them from the race.

According to the court, the decision to bar their participation did not meet the legal criteria required to prevent the parties from running in the elections.

At the end of September, the Central Elections Committee voted by 18 votes to 5 to bar the participation of the conservative Islamist Raam party, led by Mansour Abbas, as well as the joint electoral list of Hadash, Taal and Balad. In addition to the parties, several individual candidates were also excluded from the electoral process.

The grounds cited for the requests to ban them were claims that the parties supported armed struggle against Israel.

The affected parties strongly opposed the decision, describing it as political, racist and anti-democratic. The Supreme Court’s overturning of the decision had been expected.

The Central Elections Committee took a different approach toward the right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as no vote was held on banning it.

Polls show that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposing camp is expected to secure an absolute majority in the October 27 elections.

As a result, Raam could play a decisive role in determining the parliamentary majority.