Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked signed an agreement on Tuesday evening for a joint run with the HaBayit HaYehudi party.

According to the agreement, the joint party will run under the name HaBayit HaYehudi and will be represented by the letter Bet. Shaked will lead the party, and Yossi Brodny, who was elected as HaBayit HaYehudi’s new chairman in July, will serve in the Number 2 slot. Brodny, who has served as the mayor of Givat Shmuel since 2008, is continuing in his position during the election period.

It should be noted that according to recent polls, the beleaguered HaBayit HaYehudi party, which won 12 seats in the 2013 election, has almost no supporters, receiving between 0.0% to 0.2% of votes. Shaked has also been polling well below the electoral threshold, with a poll published on Sunday showing her receiving only 2.4% of votes.

Following the announcement, Shaked issued a statement saying: “I’m happy that we’ve succeeded in rebuilding a home for Religious Zionism and the responsible right in Israel. We’ll work together to establish a broad right-wing and stable government.”

On Sunday, Shaked announced that she has dissolved her partnership with Yoaz Hendel, whose refusal to commit to serving in a narrow right-wing government under former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, led Brodny to issue an ultimatum – either Hendel or HaBayit HaYehudi.

After Shaked announced she is parting ways with Hendel, she publicly admitted for the first time that she made a mistake joining the Bennett-Lapid government.

“It’s true, I made mistakes,” she said. “No human being is free of mistakes. As a shlichas tzibur, I made decisions, some of which turned out to be mistaken. But I always acted with only the best interests of the State of Israel in mind. Now I have to learn to repair things and charge forward.”

“Today, I’m returning home to the place where my heart is. We will rebuild a home for the practical and responsible right, and of course for Religious Zionism in all its shades – Sephardi, Ashkenazi, religious, traditional, from the center of the country and from the settlements that I love so much.”

Despite Shaked’s seemingly heartfelt words, the chances of her newly allied party passing the threshold are minimal. Right-wing politicians, such as Religious Zionism chairman Betzalel Smotrich, publicly called for her to show responsibility to the right-wing bloc by withdrawing from the race.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)