Netanyahu’s bloc tops Israeli vote but falls well short of majority
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Israeli election results left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition with 53 seats, eight shy of the 61 needed to govern, setting up another round of hard bargaining as accusations and counteraccusations swirl around the vote.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition emerged as the largest bloc in Israel’s recent parliamentary election, but it still fell far short of the majority needed to rule, winning just 53 of the 120 Knesset seats, according to the final tally released by the Central Elections Committee on Friday. Netanyahu’s Likud party remained the biggest single faction with 27 seats, while the opposition bloc led by centrist Gadi Eisenkot took 48 seats.
Arab party groupings Raam and the Joint List together won 19 seats, leaving them in a pivotal position as potential kingmakers in the effort to form a government. No bloc crossed the 61-seat threshold required for a majority, underscoring that coalition negotiations are likely to be drawn out and messy, with yet another election possible if the talks collapse.
The election outcome was quickly shadowed by claims from Netanyahu’s camp that Arab-Israeli parties had received foreign funding to influence the vote. Both Raam and the Joint List rejected the allegations, and Qatar dismissed them as unfounded. Israel’s Shin Bet security service said it was investigating suspected irregularities, while stressing that the probe was not meant to cast suspicion on any voting sector. The acting director general of the electoral commission, Dean Livne, said suggestions of widespread problems were “entirely groundless.”
Raam leader Mansour Abbas denied wrongdoing and said he welcomed an investigation, while the Joint List accused Netanyahu and his allies of running a campaign designed to weaken Arab voters’ influence. Opposition figures, including left-wing candidate Yair Golan, suggested that Netanyahu was trying to challenge the legitimacy of the election results. Eisenkot said he had been briefed by Shin Bet and the election committee, but added that it was still too early to know whether any irregularities had in fact occurred.
Yousef Jabareen, head of the Joint List, told AFP he was ready to cooperate with the opposition to bring down Netanyahu, but said he did not intend to join a government. Police reported the arrest of three suspects in a localized case tied to the allegations, which the election commission described as isolated.