The ex-Prime Minister’s party would win 30 or 31 seats out of the 120 of the Parliament but its ability to form a coalition to govern is still uncertain.
Le Monde
The Likoud party of ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came first on Tuesday 1
According to these surveys carried out by three major Israeli channels, Mr. Netanyahu’s party is credited with 30 or 31 seats, out of the 120 of Parliament, before the Yesh Atid training of the outgoing Prime Minister Yaïr Lapid who would harvest between 22 and 24 seats.
Then follow nine parties, including the extreme right alliance religious Zionism of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir with 14 seats, and the downtown party of the former head of the Benny Gantz army, credited with 11 to 13 seats.
With its allies, Mr. Netanyahu’s Likoud would have 61 or 62 seats, obtaining the majority. But these scores could still change official results, especially according to the seats won by the small parties.
the role of arbitrator of the Arab parties
In the Israeli proportional system, an electoral list must obtain at least 3.25 % of the votes to enter Parliament with a minimum of four seats, a particularly critical situation for the parties of the Israeli Arab minority. >
In 2020, the Arab parties, hostile to the right block of Mr. Netanyahu, had collected a record of 15 seats after a dynamic campaign under a single banner. But this time, they presented themselves in dispersed order under three lists: Raam, Hadash-Taal (Laïc) and Balad (nationalist).
According to surveys at the exit of the ballot boxes, the Raam and Hadash-Taal parties should spend 3.25 %, while the Balad formation flirts with this minimum. If it reached it, this would remove seats in the “right block” of Mr. Netanyahu with the risk for the latter not to be able to form a government.
“We are confident to reach this threshold,” said the Balad training in a press release, saying that it has noted an increase in the participation of Arab voters in the last hours before the polling stations.
“Although the polls at the exit of the ballot box indicates a trend, it is important to note that there have been discrepancies between these surveys and the real results during the last electoral cycles”, told the agency France-Presse (AFP) Yohanan Plesner, director of the Democratic Institute of Israel, an analysis center in Jerusalem.
a record participation rate since 1999
The Israelis rushed to the polling stations for these fifth legislative in the space of three and a half years, with the backdrop of a Benjamin Netanyahu, accused of corruption by justice, who wants to sign his big return to Business.
The political class has multiplied the calls to vote at the 6.8 million registered voters, which seems to have paid off. At 8 p.m. (19 hours in France), two hours before closing the polling stations, 66.3 % of voters had voted, the highest rate at the same time since 1999, according to the electoral commission.
Faced with the “right block” of Mr. Netanyahu, Yaïr Lapid, 58, leader of the party Yesh Atid (“There is a future”) and chief of a unique coalition in the history of Israel because Bringing together leftist training, center, right and an Arab party, tried to convince that the course given in recent months should be maintained.
His “Coalition of Change” had driven out of power Benjamin Netanyahu in June 2021 before losing his parliamentary majority a year later, precipitating this fifth election since spring 2019.
These elections have been involved in a climate of revival of violence in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, where Israeli forces have multiplied their operations in recent months in the wake of murderous anti-Israeli attacks.
Israeli operations have killed more than 120 people on the Palestinian side, the heaviest record for seven years.