Israel Election Count Ends With No Bloc at a Majority as Arab Parties Win a Record 19 Seats

Israel’s Central Elections Committee said Thursday it had finished counting every ballot from Tuesday’s election for the 26th Knesset, including the double-envelope votes cast by soldiers, diplomats and other voters away from their usual polling stations.

The count leaves no camp with the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat parliament. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is the largest party with 27 seats, but his bloc of right-wing and religious parties holds 53 seats, eight short of a majority. The opposition change bloc holds 48 seats. The two Arab-led lists hold 19 seats combined, up from 10 in the outgoing Knesset.

According to the committee’s figures, reported by Globes, 5,589,836 votes were cast, of which 5,564,764 were valid and 25,072 were invalid.

How the seats break down

Former army chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar finished second with 21 seats, followed by Naftali Bennett’s Together with 12 and the Joint List with 11. Ra’am and the Democrats each won eight seats. Yisrael Beiteinu, United Torah Judaism and Otzma Yehudit each won seven, while Shas and Religious Zionism each won six.

The final tally confirmed Likud’s gain of a seat at the expense of its ultra-Orthodox partner Shas, first seen as the count passed 97 percent, leaving Shas with six seats, its weakest result since 1992, according to Globes. The Reservists list stayed below the 3.25 percent electoral threshold with about 2.7 percent of the vote, and Ofer Winter’s Amcha Yisrael was also left out.

The figures are not yet absolutely final. The committee said official results will be published on Wednesday, November 4, after further checks. Under Israel’s Basic Law, President Isaac Herzog must consult all the elected lists and, within seven days of the official results, ask one Knesset member to try to form a government, by November 11 at the latest. That candidate will have 28 days, which can be extended by up to 14 more.

Fraud claims and the path to a government

Netanyahu alleged on Thursday, without providing evidence, that the Arab parties’ gains were driven in part by voter fraud, a charge Arab leaders rejected as incitement, Reuters reported. Police said they had arrested at least seven people since Tuesday in Israel’s south on suspicion of voter fraud. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said they were suspected of attempting to bribe voters to cast ballots for Ra’am.

The head of the Central Election Committee, Supreme Court jurist Noam Sohlberg, said he had asked the Shin Bet security service to investigate suspicions that unidentified foreign players had tried to intervene in the election. The committee said in a letter that there was “no base for claims that there was systematic harm to the election’s integrity.”

Ahmad Tibi, one of the leaders of the Joint List, said Netanyahu was running an orchestrated campaign meant to undermine the results. “This entire campaign is directed against Eisenkot, to prevent him, intimidate and scare him off forming a government that relies on external support from the Joint List or Ra’am,” Tibi told Reuters.

Ra’am head Mansour Abbas said his party was not involved in the reported suspicious conduct and urged a full investigation. “We have one message in response to the campaign of incitement and delegitimization he is waging against Arab citizens: Nothing will come of it, because there is nothing there,” Abbas said in a statement.

Herzog said the allegations must be investigated. “But even at a moment like this, we must not tarnish an entire community that sought to exercise its right to vote and take an active part in democracy,” he said in a statement.

Eisenkot called for an investigation that would protect election integrity but said Netanyahu was exploiting the suspicions to “spread chaos.” He said Netanyahu’s aim was to “challenge the official election results, in which the Israeli public voted against the government.”

Eisenkot met Democrats leader Yair Golan on Thursday, while Golan also met opposition leader Yair Lapid to coordinate their next steps. The change bloc and the Arab parties together hold 67 seats, but no such alliance has been agreed, and Eisenkot has so far ruled out relying on Arab backing.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and Today News Brief.