Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a comfortable majority to form a coalition government, with 90.7% of the votes counted in Tuesday’s legislative elections, according to data from the Central Election Commission.
Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party passed the threshold of one million votes and secured 32 seats in parliament (Knesset), according to the Spanish agency EFE.
To the deputies elected by Likud are added 14 from religious Zionism and 19 from the two ultra-Orthodox parties that make up the pro-Netanyahu bloc.
These results secure 65 of the 120 seats in parliament, a comfortable majority for Netanyahu’s returnwho accumulates 15 years in power.
In contrast, the defeat of the anti-Netanyahu bloc of parties, led by current Prime Minister Yair Lapid, is becoming more and more concrete.
Israel. With 85% of votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc is expected to win the election and form a government
Lapid Yesh Atid’s centralist party managed to hold on to second place with 24 seats, but its partners in the centre, right and left performed disastrously, weakening the bloc.
In total, they have 55 seats, including 12 from the National Unity party, led by current Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
The historic Labor Party, which has ruled Israel for four decades, barely manages the minimum of four seats, while the pacifist Meretz does not cross the electoral threshold and will be out of parliament for the first time since its creation in 1992.
The Arab Balad party also appears to be out of the Knesset.
Most of the regular votes have already been countedlacking the verification of the votes by mail of the voters of military bases, hospitals, homes, prisons and embassies.
This election, whose results are expected on Wednesday night, is Israel’s fifth in less than four years.
Pre-election polls had indicated that there would be a dead end, without a block with a sufficient majority to form a government, which raises fears of a new trip to the polls in 2023.
But the partial results show that Netanyahu’s bloc will have room to govern with an ideologically homogeneous right-wing coalition, according to EFE.
Source: Observadora
