Tuesday's election, on 27 October, for the 26th Knesset produced no winner able to govern. With almost all votes counted, Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc took 53 of the 120 seats in the Israeli parliament and the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot took 48. A majority requires 61.
The gap between the two blocs is real, but it settles nothing: Netanyahu is eight seats short and Eisenkot thirteen. The arithmetic of the result puts a third group — one historically kept out of coalitions — at the centre of forming a government.
Arab parties with 19 seats
Arab parties took 19 seats, the highest number they have ever won in an Israeli election. The internal split between the Joint List and Ra'am was still shifting between partial counts — 12 to 13 for the former and 6 to 7 for the latter — but the total of 19 held.
It is that bloc that makes a coalition without Netanyahu possible on paper: 48 plus 19 comes to 67. Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen said his party is prepared to help remove Netanyahu's government. Ahmad Tibi, of Hadash-Ta'al, signalled willingness to work with the opposition, saying it could form a government if it had the resolve.
The resistance is on the other side. Part of the opposition avoids depending on Arab parties to sustain a government, and no deal has been struck.
How the parties finished
By the count released by the Central Elections Committee on Wednesday, 28 October, the distribution is as follows:
- Likud (Netanyahu): 26
- Yashar! (Eisenkot): 21
- Joint List: 12 to 13
- B'Yachad (Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid): 12
- Democrats (Yair Golan): 8
- Yisrael Beytenu (Avigdor Liberman), United Torah Judaism, Shas and Otzma Yehudit: 7 each
- Religious Zionism-Zehut: 6
- Ra'am: 6 to 7
The Reservists-Economic list, of Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha, and Amcha Israel fell below the electoral threshold in the partial counts.
Turnout among military personnel was 79.9%, 6.2 percentage points above the previous election.
The count can still move
More than 500,000 double-envelope ballots — those of soldiers, prisoners, hospital patients and diplomats, counted separately — began to be tallied on Wednesday night and continue through Thursday evening. That volume is enough to shift a seat or two and, with the current margin, to change the sums for whoever tries to form a government. Further checks are scheduled for next week.
The deadlock ahead
Eisenkot has ruled out serving under Netanyahu, including in a rotation of the prime minister's post, and other opposition leaders have also rejected a coalition headed by him — which makes a unity government unlikely. Eisenkot argues that the bloc's candidate for prime minister should be the leader of the largest opposition party, but the bloc has announced no agreement on that.
One possibility raised by the exit polls is a minority government, able to win a confidence vote without a majority of its own. Failing that, Israel could remain under a caretaker government while negotiations run — and, if the deadlock holds, head to another election.
With information from The Jerusalem Post and Ynet.
