As ballots were counted in the Knesset on Wednesday, all the symptoms pointed to a resounding victory for opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his bloc of right-wing, far-right and party parties, a result that would end a political crisis that has held five general elections. in less than 4 years.
With around 86% of the votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc of unwavering parties is expected to win 65 seats out of 120 Knesset seats, a majority.
The numbers were expected to change, as officials had not yet begun counting so-called double-wrapped votes cast by members of the security forces, prisoners, other people with disabilities, prominent diplomats and others, but a significant shift in the balance between Netanyahu. Bloc and its belligerent parts were not noted as likely.
The coalition that promises to be Israel’s next is made up of Netanyahu’s Likud party, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Yahadut HaTorah parties, and the far-right Zionist party led by Bezalel Smotrich, which includes Itamar Ben Gvir’s extremist Otzma Yehudit faction.
Ben Gvir is the biggest star of the election, as he went from leading a fringe party to becoming a popular leader in a party that represents around 10% of Israeli voters.
If the effects are not significantly replaced, it would mark a meteoric return for Netanyahu, recently tried for three corruption cases, and end four years of political stalemate that has dragged the country through a series of elections.
But critics warn that he may also impose force on ultra-nationalists like Ben Gvir and his political spouse Bezalal Smotrich, who may strip Arab citizens of their rights, weaken the Supreme Court and pass a law that will fix Netanyahu’s legal problems and shake social divisions.
The remaining critical aspect is the fate of the left-wing Meretz party and the Arab radical Balad party, both slightly below the minimum electoral threshold of 3. 25%. Meretz expected to get 3. 19% while Balad 3. 01%, meaning standing, neither side will be in the next Knesset.
The only situation that can frustrate the majority of Netanyahu’s bloc is if Meretz and Balad are above the threshold and some other left-wing Labour party, lately with 3. 57%, does not fall below. that the overall distribution of seats among the blocs is not expected to replace significantly, further adjustments to party totals are possible.
Hebrew media reported that Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party was already preparing for an imaginable transition of power, with Lapid intending to phone Netanyahu as soon as the final effects are released, which may take several days.
Faced with possible political oversight, Meretz MK Mossi Raz told Army Radio on Wednesday morning: “What we are seeing are partial results. We remain cautiously optimistic. We will continue to constitute our constituents, even outside the coalition or the Knesset.
Meanwhile, an anonymous senior Labour member has been quoted lashing out at party leader Merav Michaeli following Labour’s obvious poor performance.
The party member said the Labor Party, the ruling party in Israel’s early decades and a major political force until a few years ago, remained through party loyalists who voted for the Labor Party despite Michaeli, the Ynet news site reported.
“We will be waiting for her to draw the apparent conclusions, otherwise we will send her home,” he said. “It is unbelievable that Labour is struggling to cross the electoral threshold. Merav is a colossal failure and disconnected from reality.
On the other side of the political divide, Ben Gvir told reporters he would paint for all other peoples of Israel.
Ben Gvir vowed to be part of a “completely right-wing” government, but added: “I want to say that I will work for all of Israel, even for those who hate me. “
Earlier in the morning, Netanyahu himself told his supporters that he was “on the cusp of a massive victory,” promising a government that would repair Israel’s pride and strengthen it again.
“If the real effects reflect the ballot box, I will establish a national government that will take care of all the citizens of Israel,” he told his supporters, a word also used to describe nationalist sentiment.
Speaking shortly before Netanyahu, his main rival, Lapid, refused to admit defeat and told party loyalists in Tel Aviv to wait until all the votes were counted and claimed that his Yesh Atid party had achieved record levels of support.
“They need a policy that is not based on hate and incitement,” Lapid said of his voters.
One party that fell well below the threshold was Ayelet Shaked’s Jewish Home, which held a crusade for Netanyahu but was met with little due to anger among its potential voter base that Shaked joined the existing government that ousted Netanyahu last year after 12 years in power. .
Jewish Home won only 1. 17% of the vote, according to non-final results, but a report by the Twelfth Channel claimed that Shamed’s run to the end was coordinated with Netanyahu, with the aim of expanding the overall vote count, thus expanding the number of votes needed. cross the 3. 25% election threshold and potentially help sink some rival parties.
On Tuesday night, exit polls from Israel’s main networks gave Netanyahu a transparent path to power, with 62 seats between his Likud faction, the devout far-right Zionism and the haredi parties Shas and Yahadut HaTorah. At least 61 seats are needed to secure a majority and form a 120-seat Knesset government.
As pollsters reviewed their findings and the first results began to come in overnight, the numbers shifted more in Netanyahu’s favor.
Israel has been rocked by political turmoil since the fall of a Netanyahu-led government in late 2018. Two rounds of elections, in April 2019 and September 2019, yielded no winners, and a short-lived unity government was formed after the third vote in March 2020 collapsed after less than a year.
As of June 2021, Lapid’s unlikely coalition, which he led with his predecessor as prime minister Naftali Bennett, controlled to oust Netanyahu from the force after more than a decade, but the alliance, which included the right-wing Yamina and the Islamist Ra’am. , struggled to triumph over deep ideological divisions and collapsed. partly under pressure from Netanyahu and his allies.
The Times of Israel contributed to this report.
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