Israel’s election was too close to call on Tuesday night after a historic turnout by voters for an election described by some as the most consequential in the country’s history, and marked by a record participation by Israeli Arab voters. Exit polls published on Tuesday evening, they suggested that the opposition bloc of parties led by the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Gadi Eisenkot, would win most seats in the Knesset by a slight margin, edging out Benjamin Netanyahu’s right and far-right coalition despite the prime minister’s Likud emerging as the largest party. The result is likely to set off weeks of jockeying over who can form a coalition government before a prime minister is declared or another round of elections is called.
After a day in which Israelis streamed to polling stations across the country, exit polls suggested Netanyahu’s ability to command the loyalty of a large core of Likud party voters remained undimmed despite his rejection by large numbers of Israelis. The predicted haul of up to 18 Knesset seats for Israeli Arab parties is likely to make them the kingmakers in what seem certain to be protracted talks to form a new government, with Netanyahu likely to fall short of the support required to form a new coalition. The exit polls – if they prove accurate – suggest a struggle for either Likud or Eisenkot’s Yashar to find a road to a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Likud’s projected showing, not for the first time, appears to have defied predictions in the runup to the vote. What is clear, however, is that Netanayhu no longer has a claim to a mandate with his political fate in the balance. The exit polls were released after a last-ditch effort by Netanyahu and several other parties to keep polling stations open beyond their 10pm deadline was rejected by the Central Elections Committee as the prime minister suggested publicly that efforts were being made by the “left and Arabs” to steal the election, a claim rejected by the committee that said it had seen no evidence of systematic tampering.
Entangled in a long-running corruption trial, Netanyahu and his far-right coalition had stoked xenophobic fears and suggested Israel would be vulnerable to a nuclear attack without him. Tuesday’s election, which drew the highest turnout in 50 years, had been framed as a referendum on nearly 17 years of unbroken rule by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has most recently overseen three years of unprecedented conflict, instability and growing international isolation. With more than 7 million people eligible to vote, by 6pm voter turnout was 74.3% – a rise of about 9% on the previous election – with marked increases in the number of serving military members voting.
There were also reports of tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad who had arrived to vote in recent days, with many still arriving at Ben Gurion airport to cast their ballots on Tuesday. Voting was heavy in a number of major cities, including Tel Aviv and Haifa, which some analysts had suggested would benefit the opposition, with long queues to vote in some locations. That pattern was repeated in Israeli-Arab towns, many of which have a long history of boycotting elections.
As polls opened on Tuesday, Netanyahu and his far-right coalition allies launched what critics condemned as a scare campaign to encourage their supporters to turn out, with the familiar racist tactic of warning that large numbers of Israeli Arabs would be voting. Netanyahu made a similar claim to rally support in 2015. In a recorded message to voters, Netanyahu suggested Arabs and the left were trying to steal the election and Likud claimed suspected irregularities at hundreds of polling stations used by Israeli Arabs.
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