Israelis are facing the prospect of weeks of political deadlock after exit polls and partial results in Tuesday's national election showed neither of the two main blocs winning enough seats to form a government. By early Wednesday afternoon, election officials had tallied more than 70 percent of the vote, and the count so far, together with the exit polls, indicated that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line alliance nor the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot would reach the 61 seats required for a straight majority in the Knesset, according to The New York Times.
The partial count put Mr. Netanyahu's coalition at roughly 54 seats, Mr. Eisenkot's bloc at about 49 and the two Arab parties at 17, The Times of Israel reported. Those figures could still shift as remaining ballots are processed.
Why it matters
The vote was widely treated as a referendum on Mr. Netanyahu's far-right government, and it was the first national election since the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, set off three years of war. Turnout was the highest in at least a quarter-century, The New York Times reported. With no bloc able to govern alone, both sides would have to look beyond their own alliances for support to install a prime minister — a process that could take days of vote-counting followed by lengthy coalition negotiations, or, if those fail, send the country back to the polls.
A unity option and a rival's dilemma
Some of Mr. Netanyahu's allies have raised the idea of a broad unity government that would bring him together with Mr. Eisenkot and other centrists, a scenario that would suit the caretaker prime minister as long as he stayed at the top. Mr. Netanyahu remains in office in a caretaker capacity until a government is formed.
Mr. Eisenkot faces a harder choice. He has called Mr. Netanyahu unfit to lead, but he has also opposed working with Arab parties in a coalition — even though those parties' projected 17 seats could be his only route to unseating the prime minister. In his post-election remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Eisenkot did not name the Arab parties and instead promised to assemble what he called a stable Zionist government, The New York Times reported.
Both camps claimed momentum overnight. Mr. Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff, told supporters that the public had chosen change. Hours later, Mr. Netanyahu said Likud had become the largest party in the country and called for a strong right-wing government to be formed, according to The New York Times.
Votes still to count, and warnings over Iran
The exit polls do not capture the hundreds of thousands of ballots cast at special polling stations, including on military bases, in hospitals, prisons and embassies. In the 2022 election, those votes tended to favor Mr. Netanyahu and his allies, The New York Times reported.
Mr. Eisenkot also used his speech to caution the caretaker prime minister against using security matters for political advantage, following reports that Mr. Netanyahu has been pressing for renewed strikes on Iran. "Netanyahu, don't dare use Israel's security for your political needs," he said, according to The New York Times.
The Oct. 7 attacks loomed over the campaign. Residents of the communities hit hardest said they were disappointed that so many Israelis had voted to return to office a prime minister who was in power at the time, The New York Times reported. Nili Bar Sinai, 76, a retired social worker whose husband was killed at Kibbutz Be'eri near the Gaza border, said she hoped opposition leaders would have the courage to join hands with the Arab parties to unseat Mr. Netanyahu.
Among right-wing voters, anxiety about the left and Arab parties gaining power helped drive turnout, according to Yakov Matzlawi, 51, a Likud activist who runs a stall in the market in Ramla, near Tel Aviv. CNN reported that Mr. Netanyahu remained defiant despite the inconclusive result, while Reuters described the outcome as unexpectedly clear backing for him among Israeli Jews.
What happens next
Under Israeli procedure, President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, is tasked after an election with choosing a candidate to try to form a government. Most ballots were expected to be counted by Wednesday, though the final tally could take days, and coalition talks could stretch longer. If negotiations fail, the country could face a second election — a path it has taken before. For Mr. Netanyahu, running down the clock in hopes of a stronger result in a fresh vote may be his best chance of keeping the job, The New York Times reported.
