Israel’s 2 main political parties deadlocked after election
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s two main political parties were deadlocked yesterday after an unprecedented repeat election, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing an uphill battle to hold on to his job.
The election’s seeming political kingmaker, Avigdor Lieberman, said he’ll insist upon a secular unity government between Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White parties, who based on partial results are currently tied at 32 seats each out of the 120 in parliament.
Without Lieberman’s endorsement, both parties appear to have fallen well short of securing a parliamentary majority with their prospective ideological allies.
With results still pouring in, Lieberman insisted the overall picture was unlikely to change. He also demanded a secular “liberal” government shorn of the religious and ultra-Orthodox allies the prime minister has long relied upon.
“The conclusion is clear, everything we said throughout the campaign is coming true,” he said outside his home in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim.
“There is one and only option: a national unity government that is broad and liberal and we will not join any other option.”
That could spell serious trouble for the continuation of Netanyahu’s lengthy rule.
Gantz, a former military chief, has ruled out sitting with a Netanyahu-led Likud at a time when the prime minister is expected to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming weeks.
It raised the specter of an alternate Likud candidate rising to challenge Netanyahu, though most of its senior officials have thus far pledged to stand solidly behind their leader.
Netanyahu, the longest serving leader is Israeli history, had desperately sought an outright majority with his hard-line and ultra-Orthodox allies in hopes of passing legislation to give him immunity from his expected indictment.
Israel’s attorney general has recommended charging Netanyahu with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three scandals, pending a long-awaited hearing scheduled in the coming weeks.
A formal indictment would increase the pressure on Netanyahu to step aside if he does not have immunity.
The partial results released yesterday by the Central Election Commission were based on a tally of 56 percent of the potential electorate. Overall turnout was 69.4 percent.
According to the partial results, Likud with its natural allies of religious and ultra-nationalist parties mustered just 56 seats — or five short of the needed majority.
Gantz’s Blue and White and its center-left allies garnered 55 seats, placing Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu and its nine seats in the middle as the deciding factor.
The only precedent for a unity government in Israel came after the 1984 election and saw a rotating premiership between the heads of the two largest parties.
The joint list of Arab parties, who have never sat in an Israeli government, also finished strong, with results indicating they had earned 12 seats to become the third-largest party in parliament.