Jerusalem (EFE).- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won between 24 and 25 seats in the general election, down from 32 in 2022; however, his bloc falls short of a governing majority, and the opposition outnumbers it by two to three seats, according to exit polls published by the country’s major TV channels.
The exit polls give the opposition bloc between 52 and 53 seats: 21 to 23 seats for Yashar! (Straight Ahead!), led by Gadi Eisenkot; 12 to 14 seats for Together, led by Naftali Bennett; 9 to 10 seats for The Democrats, led by Yair Golan; and 7 to 9 seats for Yisrael Beytenu (Israel Our Home), led by Avigdor Lieberman.
The bloc led by Netanyahu is projected to win around 50 seats: 24 to 25 for his Likud party; six to eight for the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, led by Aryeh Deri; six to seven for the Jewish Power party, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir; around six for the Religious Zionism party, led by Bezalel Smotrich; and six to seven for the United Torah Judaism party, led by Yaakov Asher.
The Arab parties are projected to win 17 seats following an afternoon that saw spikes in voter turnout among the Palestinian population holding Israeli passports.
The Joint List, which includes the left-wing parties Hadash, Taal, and Balad, is projected to win 10 to 11 seats. The Islamist Raam party is projected to win seven seats.
The Israeli parliament has 120 seats, and a majority is defined as 61 seats. Since neither Eisenkot’s nor Netanyahu’s blocs reach the number, the support of the Arab parties is key to forming a government, though both sides are currently rejecting it.
As of Tuesday, Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing party The Democrats, expressed his willingness to work with “all his partners” in the opposition to form a government.
«The people have spoken. They have ousted the Netanyahu government. We have a historic opportunity to establish a government of real change in Israel, and we won’t let it slip away,» said the left-wing leader whose party is projected to win 10 seats, according to polls.
«We are prepared to work with all our partners, bridge our differences, and assume our responsibility,» he added.
According to the Central Elections Committee, voter turnout in Tuesday’s Israeli elections reached 74.3% at 8:00 pm local time, two hours before polling stations closed. The aforementioned is eight percentage points higher than the turnout recorded at the same time in the last election and is the highest since 1988.
Over 5.4 million Israelis have already cast their ballots, and polling stations are set to close at 10:00 pm local time. The turnout recorded two hours before polls closed on Tuesday is higher than the 70.6% total turnout recorded in the 2022 elections.EFE
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