Wednesday 18 March 2015

Israel elections: No landslide against Bibi

Polls have closed in Israel
Israel election: No clear winner, exit polls suggest
Neither Israel's governing Likud party nor the opposition Zionist Union has a clear lead in the general election, exit polls suggest

Breaking news


BBC,
17 March, 2015, 20:10 GMT

Exit polls by two Israeli broadcasters gave both sides 27 seats each in Israel's 120-seat parliament.

Both sides would need support from other parties in order to form a coalition government.


More than 65% of those eligible voted in the election, which ended at 22:00 local time (20:00 GMT).



Exit polls show Netanyahu’s Likud tied with Zionist Union in Israel elections
Arab Alliance takes third place in Israeli elections – exit polls


Reuters/Nir Elias
RT,
17 March, 2015


The national election in Israel has finished with no clear lead for any party, exit polls showed on Tuesday evening. Israel’s governing Netanyahu-led Likud party and the opposition Zionist Union have seen even results, the national TV channels reported.

Channel 10 and Channel 1 said the two opposing parties secured 27 seats each in the 120-member parliament – the Knesset. Channel 2 said that PM Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud finished with a narrow victory, winning 28 seats to the 27 of Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union.

The Joint Arab List, led by Ayman Odeh, which has emerged as one of the surprises in the election campaign, took the third place in the vote, according to exit polls.

View image on Twitter
3 TV networks release their exit polls in Israel's election. Voters rally around center-left & center-right pillars

The Tuesday election proved to be a test for Israel's long-serving PM Benjamin Netanyahu, with the vote having been predicted to be a closely-fought battle. While Netanyahu stayed true to his hardline policies, having once again announced on Monday that he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state, the Zionist Union concentrated their election campaign on social and economic issues.

The results were claimed to be a “great victory” by Netanyahu. On his Twitter account, the PM said that “against all odds” the election became “a great victory for the national camp led by Likud, a great victory for the people of Israel.”

Voter turnout in the election has surpassed 2013 attendance levels, with almost 66 percent of 5.9 million eligible voters declared to have attended two hours before the polls closed.

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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot for the parliamentary election as his son Yair stands behind him at a polling station in Jerusalem March 17, 2015. (Reuters/Sebastian Scheiner)
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot for the parliamentary election as his son Yair stands behind him at a polling station in Jerusalem March 17, 2015. (Reuters/Sebastian Scheiner)Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot for the parliamentary election as his son Yair stands behind him at a polling station in Jerusalem March 17, 2015. (Reuters/Sebastian Scheiner)


Turnout among Arab Israelis, who account for just over 20 percent of the population, was reported to have been higher than in the past. They were seen to have formed long lines outside polling stations on Tuesday, with the leader of the Arab Joint List Ayman Odeh describing the current vote as “a historic day for the Arabs.”

With final results not expected until early Wednesday morning, the lineup of Israel’s new government will not be completely clear for some weeks, but its formation has already proved to be a challenge for both winning candidates.


Israelis vote for party lists, not individual candidates, with the Knesset seats allocated according to the percentage of the votes which the parties win. The country is thus governed by a coalition, with the head of the winning party having up to six weeks to form it.

That has not stopped Netanyahu from declaring victory, according to this tweet from TASS


Нетаньяху заявил о победе на парламентских выборах в Израиле

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