TEL AVIV – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just edged opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot in the country’s closely fought election, but a surge in the Arab vote means neither has an easy path to forming a coalition.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Netanyahu’s right-wing religious party was forecast to win 53 of the 120 parliament seats, against a below-expected 48 for Eisenkot’s bloc. That was after about 93 percent of the ballots had been counted.
Israeli news site Ynet claims that is after all the votes cast at voting sites, with the rest from absentee ballots. The two Israeli Arab parties are anticipated to nearly treble their seats to 19 and might become kingmakers in negotiations to obtain a majority. About 20% of the population are Palestinian Israelis .The Israeli Knesset needs 61 seats for a majority, but doubts remain about whether the Jewish opposition will make a deal with Palestinian parties to form a coalition government.
As analysts have been pointing out, what Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats, was emphasising earlier: Netanyahu has lost and the Jewish and Palestinian Israeli parties opposing him have garnered the most support. Golan, a junior partner in the Change bloc, has been advocating for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli co-operation to create a government.
In his first public comments since the polls ended, Israeli President Isaac Herzog urged political parties to “have an open mind” to prevent another round of elections. One thing has to be clear, and I said this before the elections too, we must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections,” Herzog said Wednesday afternoon, as the vote count was nearing completion.
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