Netanyahu and Gantz wrapping up another bitter election campaign, before voters cast their ballots for the third time in 12 months.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Benny Gantz were wrapping up another bitter election campaign on Saturday, before voters cast their ballots for the third time in 12 months.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, has been charged on several counts of corruption but is battling fiercely to maintain his grip on power.

After inconclusive elections in April and September, latest opinion polls put the two opponents neck and neck in a grueling political triathlon. 

According to the projections, Netanyahu‘s right-wing Likud and Gantz’s centrist Blue and White alliance would each win 33 seats in the 120-member Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Monday’s polls.

That result would be almost identical to the previous round, after which each leader tried and failed to form a government.

In previously unannounced television interviews aired separately Saturday evening, Gantz and Netanyahu ripped into each another.

Netanyahu told private Channel 12 that his opponent, a decorated former head of Israel’s armed forces, was “not fit to be prime minister” of Israel.

“He is weak, he’s not a leader,” the incumbent said.

The same interviewer earlier asked Gantz if he would join a coalition under Netanyahu if the third round also failed to produce a clear winner.

“There is no situation in which I will sit under Netanyahu as prime minister when he has three charges against him,” Gantz replied.

The opinion polls show that even with their respective allies neither side could gather the 61 seats necessary to form a viable coalition.