JERUSALEM (AP) – The final election results again show that Israel is once again in political stalemate, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponents failing to win a ruling majority.
The Israeli Election Commission says that with 100% of the vote counted, Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and its natural allies have won 52 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, with 120 seats. An ideologically diverse group of parties working to oust him won 57 seats.
A right-wing party won seven seats and an Arab Islamist party four. Both are not committed, but given the many rivalries in parliament, it is not clear whether either one could achieve a required majority.
The party leaders have already started negotiations that are expected to drag on for weeks. If no one is able to collect a majority of at least 61 seats, then Israel will go to elections for an unprecedented fifth time in just over two years.
Tuesday’s vote, Israel’s fourth parliamentary election in two years, was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s suitability to rule while under impeachment.
Deep divisions between the different parties will make it difficult for either side to get a majority.
Arab parties have never joined a government coalition, and for nationalist parties such an alliance is anathema. Bezalel Smotrich, a Netanyahu ally and head of the far-right religious Zionist party, said on Thursday that “no right-wing government will be established with Abbas’s support. Period. Not on my watch. ”
He was referring to Mansour Abbas, the head of the United Arabian List, who won four seats.
Gideon Saar, a defector of Netanyahu’s Likud who now heads a six-seat party committed to ousting him, said: “It is clear that Netanyahu does not have a majority to form a government under his leadership. Action must be taken now to realize the possibility of forming a government for change. “
The Likud, who won the most seats of all parties, fired back, saying such a block would be “anti-democratic”. It likened Netanyahu’s opponents to clerical leadership in Israel’s nemesis Iran, which examines candidates for senior positions.
Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said the stalemate is Israel’s “worst political crisis in decades.”
“It is clear that our political system is finding it very difficult to reach a decisive outcome,” said Plesner. He added that inherent weaknesses in Israel’s electoral system are exacerbated by “the Netanyahu factor”: a popular prime minister struggling to stay in power while being indicted. “Israelis are divided in the middle on this question.”
Several of Netanyahu’s opponents have begun to discuss bringing forward a bill to disqualify an accused politician from forming a government, a measure aimed at banning the long-serving prime minister from office. A similar bill was introduced after the March 2020 elections, but was never passed.
Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and bribes in three cases. He has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the charges as a witch hunt by biased law enforcement and media.
Despite the charges against him, Netanyahu’s Likud party received about a quarter of the vote, making it the largest party in parliament. In all, 13 parties received enough votes to join the Knesset – the most since the 2003 elections – representing a variety of ultra-Orthodox, Arab, secular, nationalist and liberal factions.