Netanyahu’s party within reach of securing coalition
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party won the most parliamentary seats in Israel’s election Tuesday, local time, according to exit polls, putting him within sight of securing a governing coalition and extending his tenure as the country’s longest-serving leader.
Netanyahu’s Likud party far outpolled its main challengers but still fell well short of a parliamentary majority, and the exit poll results, which continued to shift in the wee hours of yesterday, suggested that a majority might remain out of reach.
The exit poll results show that Israeli politics remain stalemated by a profound divide.
Three previous elections in the past two years each failed to produce a functional government, and lawmakers again face a period of intense horse-trading as pro and anti-Netanyahu forces try to cobble together a majority in the 120-seat parliament, or Knesset.
If Netanyahu again beats back a furious political challenge, he will still face an ongoing legal challenge in the courts, where he is being tried on charges of bribery, fraud and corruption.
Netanyahu’s alliance garnered 53 seats, according to an average of early television exit polls, while a disparate collection of anti-Netanyahu parties won 57.
If Netanyahu’s alliance of Right-wing and religious parties
is to retain power, that could depend on whether he can persuade one of his former coalition partners, former defence minister Naftali Bennett, to join him.
Bennett, a Right-wing leader who broke with Netanyahu to form his own party, might be able to give Netanyahu the margin he needs to secure a bare majority in the Knesset.
Bennett has not ruled out serving in a new Netanyahu government, even though the two former allies are said to dislike each other. And Bennett’s Knesset seats, perhaps as many as eight, would give him significant power in the coalition negotiations that will begin immediately. Some observers dubbed him ‘‘the kingmaker.’’ –