Jerusalem: The exit polls on Tuesday night said Gadi Eisenkot. Twenty-four hours later, the count said Benjamin Netanyahu — but not by enough to govern.
With 90.4 per cent of ballots counted on Wednesday, the Central Elections Committee projected Netanyahu's bloc at 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset and the opposition at 67, split between 48 for Eisenkot's bloc and a record 19 for the two Arab-led parties, the Joint List and Ra'am. Sixty-one is a majority.
Likud remained the largest single party with 26 seats. Eisenkot's Yashar had 21. Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad and the Joint List were tied at 12, the Democrats had eight, and Shas, United Torah Judaism, Otzma Yehudit, Ra'am and Yisrael Beytenu had seven each. Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism had six. Two parties — Yoaz Hendel's Reservists-Economic at 2.63 per cent and Ofer Winter's People of Israel at 1.61 per cent — fell below the 3.25 per cent threshold.
The numbers are a fall for the Prime Minister as much as a result. His bloc held 68 seats in the outgoing Knesset. The Arab-led parties nearly doubled, from 10 to 19 — their highest ever — on turnout that their leaders described as a deliberate vote against the far right.
The arithmetic does not produce a government on its own. The opposition bloc plus the Arab parties reaches 67, but all but one of the Jewish parties in that bloc have ruled out sitting with Ra'am or the Joint List. Netanyahu's 53 is eight short, and his potential partners outside the bloc fell below the threshold.
Eisenkot said on Tuesday night that the public had "spoken in favour of change" and that "the coalition of failure has lost the people's trust". He has rejected serving under Netanyahu, including in a rotation.
Around 4.3 lakh to 4.8 lakh double-envelope ballots, cast by soldiers, diplomats, prisoners, hospital patients and others voting outside their registered stations, began being counted at 1 am on Thursday and were expected to finish by Thursday evening. The full count is due on Thursday afternoon and the official results on November 4.
President Isaac Herzog will begin consultations with party leaders next week once the results are official, and has urged them to keep an open mind to avoid another election. Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister until a government is formed. No party has ever won an outright majority in Israel's history.