Likud at 36-35 for Blue and White; New right Party of Bennett and Shaked, fails to pass electoral threshold; Netanyahu in negotiations with right-wing parties and Haredim to form a coalition.
The Central Elections Committee has released the latest results for the April 9 Knesset elections. With the completion of the vote count, including those of IDF servicemembers, Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party gained a 36th Knesset seat while his main rival, the Blue and White Party, remains at 35 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats.
The figures, released by the committee, after a delay of several hours caused by technical issues, also showed that Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked’s New Right party failed to pass the threshold of 3.25% of the vote.
The latest results indicate that a party required 139,744 votes in order to pass the threshold and the New Right lacked 1,461 votes.
The Right-wing bloc now has a 65-55 advantage over the Left and the Arab parties. However, minor changes to the final tally may still be forthcoming.
The other parties have the following number of Knesset seats: Shas, 8; Yahadut Hatorah lost one seat to the Likud and now has 7; Labor and Hadash-Ta’al, 6; the Union of Right-Wing Parties, 5; Yisrael Beytenu, 5; Meretz and Ra’am-Blad, 4 each. The Zehut Party failed to pass the threshold.
Netanyahu is already in the midst of negotiations in order to form, what would be a narrow, coalition of 65 MKs, but any of his partners will have the ability to bring down the government. Another option is for the prime minister to seek a national unity government with the Blue and White Party, or with defectors from that party, in order to form a more stable coalition.
The announcement of the results was scheduled for 8pm but was delayed, due to what the head of the Central Elections Committee said were technical issues.
Justice Hanan Melcer, said in a statement to the press that an announcement would be made before midnight.
He said that there had been a problem with transmitting the final results to the commitee’s website, but that the results would also be online at midnight.
Earlier, CEC spokesman Giora Pordes said that several polling stations had been subjected to further investigation because their results were “out of balance” and that the data and the reporting protocols had not corresponded.
“We are talking about 30-40 polling stations that are being investigated following complaints, because of the close race between some of the parties, every vote is important and examined with sensitivity,” Pordes said.
Representatives of several parties addressed the committee on Thursday, alleging fraud in the vote count, including Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg, whose left-wing, secular party won at least four seats, and Rabbi Haim Amsalem of the far-right Zehut Party, which failed to pass the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent for entry in to the Knesset.
Zandberg told the committee that her party’s votes had been interfered with by members of an ultra-Orthodox party.
“They are trying to steal a seat from us. We have reports of political interference in counting votes. United Torah Judaism is trying to exert pressure so that Meretz’s fifth seat goes to them. We have been informed of disappearing ballot boxes and discrepancies between the protocols and what is posted on the elections website,” she said.
“Even in the elections for the Tel Aviv municipality, this happened to us with United Torah Judaism and serious irregularities. This situation cannot be repeated, and the purity of the elections must be preserved.”
UTJ rejected the allegations, saying that her claims were groundless.
The Zehut Party claims that confirmed votes counted at the polls are not showing up on the Central Committee’s website and suspect foul play.
Also earlier, outgoing Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked was at the committee offices where she expressed hope that once ballots cast by IDF servicemembers were counted, her New Right Party would pass the electoral threshold, but that seems to not be the case.
As reported by Ynetnews