Votes are being counted after Israelis cast their ballots in the country’s fifth election since 2019.
And with 84% of the results in, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc is on course to win a majority in parliament — which would put the 73-year-old right-winger back at the helm of leadership.
This would be a controversial and dramatic comeback for the lightning-rod politician, whom Israelis tend to either love or hate. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, and is currently charged with multiple counts of corruption with investigations and legal proceedings ongoing.
In order to lead the government in Israel, a party has to win a majority of 61 seats — the magic number — in Parliament. If that isn’t attainable, the party with the most seats has to negotiate alliances with other parties to form a coalition.
So far, with the majority of votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc led by his right-wing Likud party is reportedly set to win 65 out of 120 seats.
The election comes at a time of great polarization for Israel, and heightened fears following a rise in Israeli-Palestinian violence and attacks. The Middle Eastern country of 9.4 million is also facing mounting living costs and inflation at multi-year highs, spurred by geopolitical conflict like Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as energy shortages and supply chain issues that are affecting much of the world.
And the fact that Israelis are voting for their leadership for a whopping fifth time since September of 2019 reveals a country more divided and politically gridlocked than ever.
“The new Israelis Knesset, and most likely Netanyahu’s new government, will be much more religious and right-leaning,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute who was a Knesset member for the centrist-liberal Kadima party, told CNBC.
Plesner added however that “there shouldn’t be a major shift in the economy, foreign policy or security affairs – rather we expect changes to take place on constitutional matters and on questions of religion and state.”
Why so many elections?
Israel’s last government collapsed in late June after the Parliament, or Knesset, voted to dissolved itself.
That happened after the most diverse and unlikely coalition in the country’s history — which managed to push Netanyahu out of power after 12 years and featured centrists, right wingers, left wingers, and even Islamists — eventually hit a level of gridlock it could not overcome, just one year into its existence.
Prior to that coalition’s formation, Israel went through four elections in the space of two years, each one inconclusive enough to force another vote. It was Israel’s government formation process in 2021, almost exactly one year before June’s Knesset dissolution, that saw Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, removed from office.
Back then, in 2021, Netanyahu lost power after his 28-day deadline to form a government expired and he failed to build a governing coalition with enough support from multiple parties, allowing other politicians to run and give it a shot. It was after that that the hodge-podge mix of parties, then led by the centrist lawmaker Yair Lapid and right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennett, came together in a coalition that defeated him.
But as with the previous years, many of the lawmakers were too diametrically opposed to one another to get much done.
Now, a Netanyahu win would see a coalition that heavily features hardline right-wing, ultra-orthodox parties that are alienating to many secular Israelis. This, Plesner said, could be a potential liability on issues like foreign policy and Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians.
“Netanyahu himself has traditionally been cautions and risk-averse on foreign policy questions and security manners,” Plesner said, “but it will be a challenge for him to rein in some of the more extreme elements of his coalition who have a history of provocative behavior and whose actions could lead to unintended consequences.”
Source: CNBC
