Israel’s Netanyahu claims ‘huge victory’ for right-leaning parties in election amid exit polls

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed a ‘huge victory’ for right-wing parties in Israel’s general election on Tuesday night – despite exit polls indicating there is no clear winner. 

The polls on Israel’s three main TV stations indicated the elections had resulted in a virtual deadlock for a fourth time in the past two years, leaving Netanyahu with an uncertain future and the country facing the prospect of continued political deadlock. 

The exit polls showed that both Netanyahu and his religious and nationalist allies, along with a diverse array of opposition groups, both fell short of the parliamentary majority required to form a new government. 

That could set of the stage for weeks of paralysis and raised the possibility of an unprecedented fifth consecutive election later this year if the parties cannot form a coalition.  

But Netanyahu, whose Likud party is projected to be ahead in the polls, hailed the election as a ‘huge win for the right’ despite the still inconclusive results. 

In a statement on Facebook late Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israelis have ‘given a great victory to the right and to the Likud under my leadership’.

He added: ‘It is clear that a clear majority of Israeli citizens are right wing, and they want a strong and stable right wing government that will protect the economy of Israel, security of Israel and land of Israel. This is what we will do.’

Exit polls are often imprecise and the official results may not be known for days.  

The exit polls conducted by Channels 11, 12 and 13 were nearly identical, showing Netanyahu and his allies with 53 to 54 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel’s parliament.   

His opponents were projected to win 59, with his nearest rival Yesh Atid, a centrist party led by Yair Lapid, projected to take between 16 and 18 seats.

Meanwhile, Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party was projected to win 7 to 8 seats. 

If the final results are in line with the exit polls, there is no guarantee that Netanyahu or his opponents will succeed in putting together a coalition.

It would mean both sides will have to court Bennett, a former Netanyahu ally with strained relations with the prime minister, to form a majority of at least 61 seats.

Bennett shares Netanyahu’s hard-line nationalist ideology but has signaled he would be open to cooperating with his rivals if given the chance to be prime minister.

Several right-wing parties have vowed never to sit in a government with Netanyahu. And Bennett refused to endorse either side during the campaign.

‘I will do only what is good for the state of Israel,’ Bennett said after the exit polls were released.  

In a speech to his supporters, Bennett declined to take sides. He vowed to promote right-wing values but also took several veiled swipes at the prime minister’s leadership style. 

‘Now is the time for healing,’ he said. ‘The norms of the past will no longer be acceptable.’ He said he would move the country ‘from leadership that is interested in itself to a professional leadership that cares.’ 

After the exit polls were published, Bennett said he received a phone call from Netanyahu but that nothing was decided.  

The election is widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s divisive rule, and once again, opinion polls had forecast an extremely tight race. 

But the initial results showed that the country remains as deeply divided as ever, with an array of small sectarian parties dominating the parliament. 

In an address to supporters early Wednesday, a subdued Netanyahu boasted of a ‘great achievement’ but stopped short of declaring victory. Instead, he appeared to reach out to his opponents and called for formation of a ‘stable government’ that would avoid another election.

‘We must not under any circumstances drag the state of Israel to new elections, to a fifth election,’ he said. ‘We must form a stable government now.’

The exit poll results come as Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket at southern Israel today, shortly after Netanyahu toured the region on election day.       

‘A short while ago, a projectile was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. As a result, an alert was activated in open areas only,’ a statement from the Israeli army said, with a spokeswoman confirming a rocket hit an open field.

The rocket launch marks the first fired from the Palestinian enclave since January – and it came shortly after Netanyahu had visited the southern Israeli city of Beersheba as part of his efforts to whip up support among voters. 

The 71-year-old premier voiced hope that Tuesday’s election will end an unprecedented period of political crisis in Israel that has forced four elections in less than two years. 

‘I hope this is the last election,’ Netanyahu said as he voted in Jerusalem.

The three-month election campaign was largely devoid of substantive issues and focused heavily on Netanyahu’s personality and whether he should remain in office. 

In contrast to past elections where he faced off against a clear rival, this time a diverse array of parties is trying to topple him, having little in common beyond their shared animosity toward him.

‘Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote,’ Netanyahu said after casting his ballot in Jerusalem, his wife, Sara, at his side.

Earlier on Tuesday, the country’s opposition leader warned that Netanyahu would form a ‘racist and homophobic’ government if reelected.

‘This is the moment of truth,’ Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, said as he cast his vote in Tel Aviv. 

‘There are only two options: a large Yesh Atid or a government of darkness, racism and homophobia.’ 

Lapid is seen as the strongest challenger to Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 but will have to form a coalition – possibly including a new far-right alliance – to create a majority government. 

Israel’s longest-serving premier and its most popular politician, Netanyahu is hoping a hugely successful coronavirus vaccination effort will give him the edge in a race analysts say is too close to call.  

He moved aggressively to secure enough vaccines for Israel’s 9.3 million people, and in three months the country has vaccinated some 80% of its adult population. 

That has enabled the government to open restaurants, stores and the airport just in time for election day.

He also has tried to portray himself as a global statesman, pointing to the four diplomatic accords he reached with Arab countries last year. Those agreements were brokered by his close ally, then-President Donald Trump.

But Netanyahu’s reputation has taken a hit from an ongoing corruption trial, his inability since April 2019 to unite a stable governing majority behind him, and large protests over his handling of the pandemic.

While supporters hail Netanyahu as ‘King Bibi,’ opponents hold up placards calling him ‘Crime Minister’. 

His right-wing Likud party is expected to win the most seats but whether Netanyahu is about to persuade coalition partners to form a majority in the 120-seat Knesset remains to be seen. 

Opinion polls forecast a tight race, with a possibility of both Netanyahu and his opponents falling short of securing a parliamentary majority yet again. 

That could plunge the country into an unprecedented fifth consecutive election later this year. 

Netanyahu failed to form a majority after elections in April 2019, which led to another vote that September.

When Netanyahu once again failed to form a majority coalition, a third vote was held in March 2020, with a government being formed a month later. 

It collapsed in December 2020 after a failed budgetary vote, triggering today’s election. 

‘It would be better if we didn’t have to vote, you know, four times in two years,’ said Jerusalem voter Bruce Rosen. ‘It’s a little bit tiring.’ 

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT), when exit polls could point to voting trends, if not a clear winner.

Israel’s 6.5million registered voters are heading to the polls under pandemic restrictions. 

Election officials at polling stations are wearing full PPE or sitting behind plastic screens, while drive-thru voting is also being offered, as well as mobile polling stations for those in quarantine or infected with coronavirus.  

By 6pm (16:00 GMT), 51.5 per cent of eligible voters had cast ballots, a drop of nearly five percentage points from the previous election a year ago, the Israeli election commission announced.

Netanyahu’s opponents have accused him of fomenting deadlock in hopes of bringing about a friendlier parliament that will grant him immunity from prosecution.

Netanyahu is hoping to form a government with his traditional religious and hard-line nationalist allies. These include a pair of ultra-Orthodox parties and a small religious party that includes openly racist and homophobic candidates.

This time, much will depend on the performance of a handful of small parties struggling to win the minimum 3.25 per cent of the vote to enter the 120-seat Knesset.

While Netanyahu’s Likud was expected to emerge as the largest single party, no party has ever won a 61-seat majority on its own. Both he and his rivals must win the support of smaller allied parties to form a majority coalition.

Recent polls have forecast that several parties were hovering near the electoral threshold. A failure by any one of them to enter the parliament would have a significant impact on the balance between Netanyahu and his opponents. 

Despite the upheaval of the pandemic, Israel’s unprecedented political gridlock remains, meaning the country is looking at three possible outcomes: another coalition under Netanyahu, an ideologically divided government united only by its opposition to him, or a fifth election.

‘I don’t have much hope. I think there will be a fifth election,’ said Amit Fischer, a 35-year-old PhD student, who is voting for Lapid.

‘There are too many small parties, too much ego, they won’t agree on anything,’ he told AFP news agency. 

To form a government, Netanyahu will have to come to terms with small factions that control a handful of seats, possibly including a new extremist, far-right alliance called Religious Zionism.

If Religious Zionism crosses the 3.25 per cent support threshold, as polls predict, it will send to parliament Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has voiced admiration for the mass-murderer of 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron in 1994 by Baruch Goldstein.

Even top Likud member and energy minister Yuval Steinitz has said it would be improper to sit with Ben-Gvir, who has vowed to secure a prominent role in government before agreeing to join Netanyahu. 

Another complicating factor in today’s election was absentee balloting. 

Up to 15 per cent of the electorate was expected to vote outside their home districts, a larger-than-usual number due to special accommodations for those with COVID-19 or in quarantine. 

The government set up special polling stations and even brought ballot boxes to hospital bedsides to allow people to vote safely.

Those votes are tallied separately in Jerusalem, meaning final results may not be known for days. Given the tight race, it could be difficult to predict the outcome before the final count is complete.

After the results come in, attention will turn to the country’s figurehead president, Reuven Rivlin.

He will hold a series of meetings with party leaders and then choose the one he believes has the best chance of forming a government as his prime minister-designate. 

That task is usually, but not always, given to the head of the largest party. 

That will set off weeks of horse-trading as the prime minister-designate tries to cobble together a government with promises of generous budgets and powerful ministries to his would-be partners.

Voting in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Rivlin said the deadlock has had a price.

‘Four elections in two years erode public trust in the democratic process,’ he said, even as he urged Israelis to vote again. ‘There is no other way.’

Netanyahu is currently on trial over corruption charges – allegations he denies, but which have helped to fuel a protest movement with weekly rallies outside his Jerusalem residence.

He has said he will not seek to block the trial and is looking forward to being exonerated, but critics suspect that if he earns a majority in Tuesday’s vote, he may seek parliamentary action to delay or end the process.

On the campaign trail, Netanyahu has highlighted his role in securing millions of vaccine doses from Pfizer Inc and turning Israel into what he dubbed a ‘vaccination nation’.

Nearly half of Israelis have been fully inoculated at a pace that drew international praise for Netanyahu. But there have also been calls for Israel to do more to ensure Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza receive vaccines.

Israel’s swift vaccine roll-out allowed it to reopen much of its economy before the election.

Posting a video of his visit to a Jerusalem hospital on Monday, Netanyahu wrote: ‘Today we are the first in the world to return to life and smile again. 

But not all Israelis are convinced, with many accusing him of political misjudgements early in the pandemic that compounded the economic pain of lockdowns.

In Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, Yonatan Meir, 34, said he would judge Netanyahu over ‘his whole era’, not the vaccine rollout.

‘Actually, it didn’t affect my decision because I know that I won’t choose him,’ he said. ‘But I think that the majority of people were very affected and were very impressed by his management of the whole crisis.’ 

Taking to social media on election morning Netanyahu urged his supporters to bring friends and relatives to the polling stations to ensure ‘a strong right-wing government’.

Israel’s electorate has migrated rightward since the turn of the century, following the failed Oslo Peace Process and the ensuing Palestinian uprisings, or intifadas.

Polling suggests right-wing parties could win up to 80 seats, meaning that ‘whoever becomes prime minister, the country is likely to espouse a right-wing direction’, said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst and pollster.

For Lapid, that means any path to power will require an alliance with Netanyahu’s rivals on the right.

That list includes former senior Likud member Gideon Saar, leader of the New Hope party that could win up to 10 seats, and who has ruled out joining a Netanyahu-led government.

Lapid would also likely have to align with a staunch ideological rival, religious nationalist Naftali Bennett.

The multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur and one-time Netanyahu protege has fallen out with the prime minister and hammered him during the campaign, while not ruling out a reunion.

Bennett’s Yamina party is, therefore, seen as a likely kingmaker.

Lapid has said he will not insist on being prime minister in an anti-Netanyahu coalition, if that helps unseat the premier.  

Tuesday’s election was forced after Netanyahu triggered the collapse of a unity government he had formed with former military chief Benny Gantz, his main challenger in three previous inconclusive elections.

Gantz, punished by supporters for sitting with Netanyahu, said he joined a Netanyahu-led coalition to give Israel desperately needed stability as the pandemic was gathering pace last year.

But their agreement called for Netanyahu to hand power to Gantz after 18 months, something observers of the prime minister correctly predicted he would never do.

If Netanyahu can’t get to 61 seats in this vote and his opponents cannot find common ground, a fifth election in three years is possible.

And, said political analyst Gideon Rahat, it’s a prospect that may suit Netanyahu, whose primary objective is to stay in power, as caretaker premier awaiting yet another election if necessary.

Netanyahu ‘can easily go to a fifth, sixth or seventh election’, Rahat said.