Israel votes in fifth election in four years as Netanyahu awaits return

Israelis go to the polls for the unprecedented fifth time in four years on Tuesday as Israel holds yet another national election aimed at ending the country’s political stalemate.

For the first time in 13 years, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not running as the incumbent. Bibi, as he is universally known in Israel, hopes to return to power as the head of a far-right coalition, while the center’s interim prime minister, Yair Lapid, hopes the mantle of the interim prime minister’s post will help keep it going. him in charge.

But if the final polls are correct, it seems unlikely that this round of voting will be any more successful in resolving the impasse than the last four. Those polls project that Netanyahu’s bloc will be one seat away from a majority in parliament.

As with the previous four elections, Netanyahu himself — and the possibility of a government led by him — is one of the defining issues, especially as his corruption trial continues. An August Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) poll found that a quarter of respondents said the identity of the leader of the party they were voting for was the second most important factor in their vote.

But some prominent center-right politicians, who agree with him ideologically, refuse to work with him for personal or political reasons. So, to come back, Netanyahu, leader of the center-right Likud party, will likely rely on support from far-right parties to form a coalition — and if successful, he could be forced to give his leaders ministerial posts.

Israelis are also very concerned about the cost of living, after seeing their utility and grocery bills soar this year. In the same IDI poll, 44% said their priority was what a party’s economic plan would do to mitigate the cost of living.

And security, always an important issue in Israeli politics, is on voters’ minds — 2022 was the worst year for conflict-related deaths for Israelis and Palestinians since 2015.

Bibi on the razor’s edge

A recent compilation of polls by Haaretz shows that Netanyahu’s bloc of parties is likely to come close to — or even just reach — the 61 seats needed to form a majority in government, while the Lapid-led bloc falls short, by about four to five seats. .

According to researchers Joshua Hantman and Simon Davies, the last week of polls saw a small jump for Netanyahu’s bloc, showing him passing the 61-seat mark in six polls and falling short in nine. The latest three polls published on Friday by the three main Israeli news outlets all showed their 60-seat bloc in the 120-seat Knesset.

Recognizing the need to win just one or two more seats, Netanyahu has been focusing his campaign on places that are Likud strongholds. Party officials previously stated that hundreds of thousands of likely Netanyahu voters did not vote.

Another important factor is Arab participation. Citizens who identify as Arabs and have the right to vote nationally represent about 17% of the Israeli population, according to the IDI; your participation can make or break Netanyahu’s chances. One of the parties, the United Arab List, has warned that if Arab participation drops below 48%, some of the Arab parties may not be able to pass the 3.25% threshold required to win any parliamentary seat.

The voting environment

With soaring grocery and utility bills and a nearly impossible housing market, Tuesday’s vote takes place in an increasingly tense security environment.

Earlier this year, a wave of attacks against Israelis killed 19 people, including mass attacks on civilians in Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel. There has also been an increase in armed attacks against Israeli troops and civilian settlers by Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank this year, claiming the lives of several other Israeli soldiers and civilians.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, there have been at least 180 shooting incidents in Israel and the Occupied Territories this year, compared to 61 shootings in 2021.

In the days leading up to election day, an Israeli man was killed and several wounded in a shooting in the West Bank, near Hebron. The following day, several soldiers were injured in a car attack near the West Bank city of Jericho. Palestinian attackers were killed in both cases.

Attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank — and sometimes on Israeli soldiers — are also on the rise, according to human rights group B’Tselem.

Near-daily Israeli security attacks on West Bank towns have killed more than 130 Palestinians this year. While the Israeli military says most were militants or Palestinians who became violently involved with them – including the newly formed ‘Lion’s Den’ militia – unarmed and uninvolved civilians were also caught.

The death of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in May while covering an Israeli military strike in the West Bank drew worldwide attention. After several months, the Israeli military admitted that it was probably its own soldiers who shot Abu Akleh — saying it was an unintentional killing in the middle of a combat zone.

Palestinian disillusionment with their own leadership’s ability to stand up to Israeli occupation has led to the proliferation of these new militias — and to fears among experts that a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising, is on the way.

How does voting and government formation work?

There are 40 political parties at the polls, although only about a dozen parties must cross the threshold to sit in parliament. Immediately after the polls close at 10 pm local time (4 pm ET), major media networks release exit polls that give the first glimpse into how the vote went — although the official vote count may vary from the exit polls. urn, often in small but crucial amounts.

Only a dozen parties are expected to exceed the minimum number of votes needed to sit in parliament.

Once the vote is officially tallied, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will hand over the mandate to form a government to the leader he considers likely to succeed — even if he is not the leader of the largest party.

That candidate then has a total of 42 days to try to corner enough parties to reach the magic number of 61 seats from the 120-seat Knesset, the Israeli parliament, to form a majority government.

In case of disapproval, the president can transfer the mandate to another candidate. If that person fails within 28 days, the mandate reverts to parliament, which has 21 days to find a candidate, a last chance before new elections are triggered. Lapid would remain as interim prime minister until a new government was formed.