BICOM

With almost all votes having been counted this morning, the Likud Party headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to have secured a clear victory over the Zionist Union, despite initial exit polls indicating an extremely close result.

As the polls closed at 10pm, Channel One and Channel Ten published exit polls showing that the two largest parties were tied on 27 seats each. The Channel Two survey put Likud slightly ahead on 28 seats to Zionist Union’s 27 seats. These initial indications appeared to place Netanyahu in a better position than Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog to form a coalition government. Nonetheless, Herzog optimistically predicted that the close results “will bring Labour back into power.”

However, with 99 per cent of the votes counted by 6am, it became clear that the exit polls had proven hugely inaccurate and that Likud had in fact secured a decisive victory, securing 30 Knesset seats, compared to Zionist Union’s 24 seats. The final opinion polls at the end of last week had predicted a Zionist Union victory by 4 or 5 seats.

The third largest party is the Joint Arab List with 14 seats, followed by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid with 11 seats while Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu enjoyed a strong debut, securing 10 seats, which will be important in Netanyahu’s coalition calculations. Jewish Home appears to have lost support to Likud, winning just 8 seats. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism won 7 and 6 seats respectively. Both Yisrael Beitenu and Meretz, had both feared failing to cross the 3.25 per cent electoral threshold, but won 6 and 4 seats apiece. Eli Yishai’s Yachad faction appears to have failed to cross the threshold.

Prior to this morning’s revised results, Netanyahu had already hailed “a great victory for Likud, for the national camp which is headed by Likud, for our people.” Meanwhile, Herzog called Netanyahu this morning to congratulate him and said, “Nothing has changed, we will keep fighting for a just society.”