It is now official. The party of former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu came out on top after the legislative elections which took place on Tuesday – but whose final result was announced on Wednesday.
With 32 seats for the former leader’s Likud, 18 for ultra-Orthodox parties and 14 for a far-right alliance, the right-wing bloc won 64 of the 120 seats in the Knesset (parliament), according to the Israel Elections Committee. , three more than the majority threshold.
Opposite, the Yesh Atid formation (“There is a future”) of the centrist Lapid and outgoing Prime Minister collected 24 elected officials, his center-right ally Benny Gantz 12 deputies, followed by 10 elected officials for two other formations and five for the Arab Raam party which had also supported its coalition, for a total of 51 deputies. The Arab Hadash-Taal party won five deputies.
Lapid sends congratulations to Netanyahu
Benyamin Netanyahu therefore returns to power at the age of 73, when he had to leave him in June 2021 after 12 years at the head of the country, in favor of the motley coalition set up by Yaïr Lapid.
“Prime Minister Lapid congratulated Mr. Netanyahu on his victory in the elections and informed the leader of the opposition that he had given instructions to prepare for an orderly transition,” his spokesman said in a statement. “The State of Israel is above all political considerations. I wish Netanyahu success, for the good of the people of Israel and the State of Israel,” said Yair Lapid.
In the Israeli proportional system, an electoral list must obtain at least 3.25% of the votes to enter Parliament with, thus, a minimum of four seats. However, two small parties hostile to Netanyahu’s camp, the left-wing Meretz party and the Arab Balad party, garnered 3.16% and 2.90% support respectively.
A “disaster” for the left formation Meretz
For Meretz, who was part of Yair Lapid’s coalition and whose four elected officials could have helped to deprive Netanyahu of a majority, the fate is all the more cruel as the party missed the 3.25% target by nearly of 4,000 votes.
“The election results are a disaster for Meretz, for the country and personally,” acknowledged party leader Zehava Galon. “Humanist values do not disappear because of 3,800 votes (…) we will continue our fight and in the end we will win it,” she added. In order to avoid this scenario, Meretz had asked the Labor Party (left) before the elections to form an alliance in order to ensure that they crossed the threshold together. In vain.
Ditto for two Arab parties – Hadash/Taal and Balad – which decided at the last minute not to present themselves on the same electoral list, depriving the anti-Netanyahu camp of many seats in total.
Nicknamed “Bibi”, Netanyahu had not left politics as his opponents wanted but had clung to the post of leader of the opposition with the objective of returning to business to possibly vote for immunity by the deputies and cancel his corruption trial.
Over the next few days, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose office is largely symbolic, will have to formally mandate Netanyahu to form a government. The latter will then have 42 days to distribute the ministerial portfolios.
But according to the Israeli press, the Netanyahu camp did not wait for this formal green light, the former Prime Minister having mandated Yariv Levin, one of his relatives, to start talks which could be complicated, with the formation ” Religious Zionism” in particular.
71.3% participation in these legislative elections
The leader of this party, Bezalel Smotrich, has indicated that he wants the Ministry of Defense, and the number 2 Itamar Ben Gvir, that of Public Security, two key positions at the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which knows its violence the largest in seven years.
Without wanting to “speculate on a government”, Washington said it hoped that “all Israeli leaders will continue to share the values of an open, democratic society that promotes tolerance and respect for all civil society, especially minority groups”. .
Israelis are facing their fifth legislative election in the space of three and a half years. What make the political class fear a “fatigue” of the 6.8 million registered voters. The opposite happened, with a turnout of 71.3%, the highest since 2015, according to the electoral commission.