TEL AVIV – Even the fourth elections in two years do not solve the puzzle of the alliances and at the close of the polls at 22 local, the exit poll reflect what the polls predict: the road to the 35th Israeli government is all uphill. The block Netanyahu it has 54 seats, its rivals 59, meaning no one reaches the 61 seats (out of 120) needed to form a majority.
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In the middle there are 8 seats that could be the tip of the balance to try to unblock a political stalemate that has been going on since December 2018. They are those of Naftali Bennett, the nationalist right wink at the center. In addition to the ultra-orthodox (15 seats between two parties), Netanyahu’s traditional allies, and to the religious nationalist right (7 seats), Bennett is the only one who has not vetoed a new government of the disputed premier in office.
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It will perhaps be a less tortuous road than the one opened with the previous elections, which took place only on March 2, 2020, which at the time took two and a half months to establish an unstable government of national unity, with the alliance between the two Benjamin, Netanyahu is Gantz. And if the “referendum on Netanyahu” has not reached the quorum, compared to the three previous rounds of elections the premier in office still collects a victory, despite the criminal trial that sees him involved: Likud it remains the first party with 31 seats, and 13 seats separate it from the second party, Yesh Atid of Yair Lapid, which is given at 18.
A not just variable that the president will have to deal with Rivlin in determining who to first assign the task of forming a government after the consultations that will begin only on March 31st. The other leaders of the “coalition of change” get single-digit numbers: Gideon Saar, which in December, just out of Likud to form “New Hope”, He was given as the most feared rival, earns only 6 seats, as well as Avigdor Lieberman; the only female leader, Merav Michaeli, manages to resurrect the historic Labor Party, which today however travels on 7 seats; there United Arab List (Lau) is positioned on 9 seats, penalized by the 15 of the outgoing Knesset by an internal break and by a sharp drop in the turnout in particular of the Arab electorate.
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The pragmatic approach of Mansour Abbas, the Arab parliamentarian who had posed as the big news of the last election campaign by stating that he would support “the government that will offer more”, without therefore excluding a right-wing government of Netanyahu, was not rewarded by the voters, and in all exit poll is the only party among those in the balance that does not pass the threshold (3.25).
On the other hand, the other parties given hesitatingly remove the negative forecasts given by the polls: 6 seats for the left of Meretz, 7 per Blue White Gantz (in free fall from 33 in the last elections, before the split with Lapid), and 7 also for the Zionist-religious coalition of Betzalel Smotrich – that Bennett took out of his party to cleanse himself of more extremist figures in the event of an alliance with the center-left.
With Smotrich there are members of the far right who oppose any territorial concession, some openly anti LGBT rights, who will prove to be critical of the formation of a Netanyahu government, and will be the thorn in the side of the liberal reminiscences of this possible coalition.
All these numbers could undergo upheavals with the count of half a million double ballots (positive, quarantined, diplomats, soldiers, all those who did not vote at their seat of residence), whose counting begins only 24 hours after the closing of the polls and it will end on Friday, as it requires a more complex anti-fraud verification procedure. If the exit polls are confirmed, the alliance puzzle could form different scenarios to reach the 61 seats needed to create a majority.
With the support of Bennett and the religious parties, Netanyahu reaches exactly 61: the most right-wing coalition in the country’s history, but the most plausible. If Bennett remained with the allies of “everything but Bibi” it would be a coalition of 67 seats between the nationalist right, Arab parties and the progressive left, therefore very unlikely to hold. Finally, if the ultra-Orthodox parties, known for their pragmatic positions, would bring their own 15 seats to the team opposing Netanyahu – obtaining many benefits in return – the games could be made, with a coalition of 63. It is not such a scenario. abstruse, considering that Rabin in ’92 he managed to seat the laity of Meretz with the haredim of Shas. And among the options on the plate, no one excludes that we can go to fifth elections.
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