JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged the bruised winner of Israel’s election yesterday, with his hawkish bloc unexpectedly losing ground to resurgent centre-left challengers, exit polls showed.
They suggested the Israeli leader’s Likud party, yoked with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, would still be the biggest bloc in the 120-member assembly with 31 of the 120 seats, 11 fewer than the 42 they had in the previous parliament.
If the exit polls compiled by three Israeli television channels prove correct, Netanyahu would be on course to secure a third term in office, perhaps leading a hardline coalition that would promote Jewish settlement on occupied land.
But his weakened showing in an election he himself called earlier than necessary could complicate the struggle to forge an alliance with a stable majority in parliament. The projections showed right-wing parties with a combined strength of 61-62 seats against 58-59 for the centre-left.
The 63-year-old Israeli leader promised during his election campaign to focus on tackling Iran’s nuclear ambitions if he won, shunting Palestinian peacemaking well down the agenda despite Western concern to keep the quest for a solution alive.
After a lacklustre campaign, Israelis voted in droves on a sunny winter day, registering the highest projected turnout since 1999 when Netanyahu, serving his first term as prime minister, was defeated by then-Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.
The strong turnout buoyed centre-left parties which had pinned their hopes on energizing an army of undecided voters against Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious allies.
The centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party, led by former television talk show host Yair Lapid, came second with 18 or 19 seats, exit polls showed — a stunning result for a fledgling newcomer to Israeli politics. Lapid won support amongst middle-class, secular voters by promising to resolve a growing housing shortage, abolish military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students and seek an overhaul of the failing education system.
The once dominant Labour party led by Shelly Yachimovich was projected to take third place with 17 seats. A stream of opinion polls before the election had predicted an easy win for Netanyahu. The final opinion polls on Friday showed his Likud-Beitenu group still on top, but losing some ground to the Jewish Home party, which opposes a Palestinian state and advocates annexing chunks of the occupied West Bank. Jewish Home was projected to take 12 seats.
Full election results are due by today morning and official ones will be announced on January 30. After that, President Shimon Peres is likely to ask Netanyahu, as leader of the biggest bloc in parliament, to try to form a government.
The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to seek out self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party and stole much of the limelight during the campaign.
Political sources said before the election that Netanyahu might approach centre-left parties in an effort to broaden his coalition and present a more moderate face to worried allies.
Yesterday’s vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East. Netanyahu has said the turbulence, which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighbouring Egypt, shows the importance of strengthening national security.
He views Iran’s nuclear programme as a mortal threat to the Jewish state and has vowed not to let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb — a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013. Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.
The issue barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern.
Reuters
