Home » Elections in Israel, the final results confirm the stalemate. Negotiations are underway to resolve the alliance puzzle

Elections in Israel, the final results confirm the stalemate. Negotiations are underway to resolve the alliance puzzle

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TEL AVIV – In announcing the final results of the elections, the president of the Electoral Committee Orly Ades let herself go to a moment of emotion. “It’s one of the happiest moments of my life,” she said in a voice broken with tears. Understandable satisfaction with the work of his team: fourth elections in two years, a complex operation to adapt the system also to the challenges of the pandemic and a lot of stress to present the results before Passover, which starts tomorrow. Or maybe the tears betrayed the anxiety that assailed her at the idea that, in a few months, she could find herself running a fifth election campaign. The results have in fact confirmed the stalemate in which the country has been in since December 2018: four times the Israelis have returned to vote without a solution coming out of the polls that could lead to a majority of 61 seats (out of 120) necessary to express a government.

With 30 seats and a detachment of 13 from the second party (Yesh Atid by Yair Lapid, 17), Netanyahu is the winner of these elections, but, if he fails to set up a coalition, in the realm of proportional even 30 seats will not they save it. The coalition that supports him gets 52 seats, 57 the one that opposes him, without presenting an alternative prime minister candidate, but only squaring around the goal of replacing the longest-serving prime minister in the country (in office for 12 years). In the middle are confirmed Yemina, the nationalist right of Naftali Bennett (7 seats) and Ra’am, the Islamist party of Mansour Abbas (4 seats), the latter portrayed by analysts as the real scales and the great surprise of these elections. Bennett and Abbas are the only two politicians who have not made an election promise not to sit in the same coalition with Netanyahu.

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In the present situation, various scenarios open up. The first, and perhaps the most plausible given Netanyahu’s proven ability over the years in shuffling all the cards in play, is that his emissaries manage to convince 2 MPs from the opposing factions to defect. In this case and together with Bennett, they would reach 61 and the rightmost government in the history of the country, which would include 16 seats of the ultra-Orthodox parties, traditional allies of Likud, and 6 of Betzalel Smotrich’s “religious Zionism”, which leads to the first time in the Knesset extremist figures opposed to any territorial compromise with the Palestinians and accused of racism and homophobia.

But finding two deserters could be a daunting task, given that the “coalition of change” is made up of a whole host of characters with whom Netanyahu has already broken alliances in the past. Paradoxically, Netanyahu’s envoys will also seek availability among the 8 seats of Benny Gantz, currently still Minister of Security of the national unity government formed in extremis in May to deal with the pandemic, but which was short-lived.

Another scenario seems almost science fiction, but it seems that Netanyahu is very interested in promoting it: in the absence of deserters, to aggregate Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party to the right-wing alliance (also as external support). Here we have to see if Netanyahu will be able to convince those of Smotrich, who at the moment claim that they will never sit with the Islamists. On the other hand Abbas continues to repeat the mantra “we do not exclude anyone who does not exclude us”, leaving all the doors open, on the right as on the left. Apart from Ra’am there are also ultra-Orthodox parties, with which they share the pragmatism of supporting the highest bidder.

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As for the opposition to Netanyahu, their majority unites an unstable coalition with Arab, left, secular and religious nationalist parties, in which the only glue is the will to send the current prime minister home. And with a rotation between Lapid and Bennett as premier. Another option could be that the two ultra-Orthodox parties, which together have 16 seats, betray Netanyahu and join the opposition, without the anti-religious Lieberman (7 seats).

In the event that the puzzle of the alliances remains unsolved and there really is a return to the polls in the summer, the opposition is simultaneously preparing another strategy: to seek an ad hoc majority for two strategic votes to be convened as soon as the new Knesset takes office, the April 7. The first to replace the president of the Knesset (currently Likud), the second to pass a law that prevents a candidate with charges against him from forming a government. A move aimed at tying the hands of Netanyahu, whose trial for corruption, fraud and abuse of power will resume on April 5, with the hearing of the first witnesses.

And while the political system is in fibrillation, a solemn silence has fallen over the country on the eve of Passover, which this year families will spend together without restrictions thanks to an extraordinary vaccination campaign that has brought down the contagion curve. The festive weekend will be propitious for under-the-table negotiations and perhaps for some examination of conscience in view of the consultations of the President of the State scheduled for Wednesday.

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