Israelis voted in a historic election on Tuesday, the first since Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack, in what many viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive rule. Turnout rose to the highest level in more than two decades and was well above the previous election in November 2022, a strong indication of what the country’s citizens saw as the high stakes of the vote. According to exit polls released late on Tuesday, neither Netanyahu’s far-right coalition nor the bloc of Jewish opposition parties, centred around Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party, was on course to win an absolute majority — signalling a potential deadlock.
Yashar and three other Jewish opposition groups were forecast to win 49 to 51 seats in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset or parliament. Netanyahu’s coalition, which has ruled Israel for the past four years and unites his Likud party with two ultranationalist and two ultra-Orthodox parties, was forecast by exit polls to win 51 to 52 seats. But as ballot counting progressed, the Netanyahu bloc appeared to be comfortably ahead of Eisenkot’s, albeit short of a majority and with no credible path to making up the shortfall.
After about 40 per cent of votes were counted, his group was projected to win about 57 seats. Israel’s Arab parties, who also oppose the current government, were predicted in exit polls to win the remaining 18-19 seats, which — if confirmed — would represent a record result and a sharp increase on the 10 they held in the outgoing parliament. Exit polls in previous Israeli elections have not always been accurate, however, and the official results will depend in part on whether various smaller parties clear the 3.25 per cent electoral threshold for representation in the Knesset.
It can take Israel’s Central Elections Committee several days to tally and formalise the vote count. By law they have seven days from the election to provide the official results to President Isaac Herzog. In past election cycles officials have completed the bulk of the count sooner, though legal challenges may delay certification of the results.
Once this is done and each party is allocated its share of the 120 seats, Herzog will hold consultations with party officials as to whom they “recommend” be tasked with forming a government. Critically, this is not necessarily the leader of the largest faction, but whoever is deemed to have the best chance of cobbling together a governing coalition. Once a politician is given a “mandate” to form a government by the president, they have 28 days — with the option of a 14-day extension — to negotiate the terms of any such coalition.
If that person fails, the president invites a second person to attempt the task within 28 days, with no option of an extension. In the event that this also fails, the president can give the Knesset 21 days to find an absolute majority of parliamentarians willing to back a third candidate, who then has 14 days to form a government. Otherwise, the Knesset is dissolved and new elections are called.
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