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Netanyahu sweeps to victory in Israeli election | Netanyahu sweeps to victory in Israeli election |
(about 1 hour later) | |
TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party overcame a strong challenge to win a clear and decisive victory in Israel’s parliamentary elections, according to an almost complete count of the votes early Wednesday. | |
The win paves the way for Netanyahu to serve a record-breaking fourth term as prime minister. | |
Exit polls released immediately after voting ended Tuesday night showed Netanyahu tied with his main opponent, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog, according to Israel’s three largest television news stations. | |
Israelis went to bed Tuesday night expecting a possibly long and drawn-out struggle between Netanyahu and his challenger, with both men and their parties claiming the mantle of leadership and trying to form governing coalitions. | |
But the count of actual votes gives Netanyahu more than enough votes to be asked to form the next government. | |
Netanyahu and his Likud Party took 30 seats in the 120-seat parliament, against the 24 forecast for the center-left Zionist Union alliance of Herzog and his running mate, former peace negotiator Tzipi Livni. | |
“Against all odds, we achieved a great victory,” Netanyahu told his supporters in a packed hall in Tel Aviv about 1 a.m. Wednesday. “Now we have to form a strong and stable government.” | |
He said he had already begun to call potential coalition partners in the right wing to discuss forming a new government. | |
In addition to the his Likud party, Netanyahu has begun discussion to bring the following into his coalition: Naftali Bennett and his Jewish Home party, composed of religious nationalists and the pro-settler camp; the populist and former Likudnik Moshe Kahlon; Avigdor Liberman, head of a small secular nationalist party whose base is dominated by Russian-speaking immigrants from the former Soviet Union; and the leaders of two parties that represent Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. | |
The election was being closely watched in Washington, where relations are strained between Netanyahu and the White House after Netanyahu gave a speech to Congress two weeks ago opposing the Obama administration’s possible deal with Iran to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program. | |
On Monday, Israeli leader’s announced that he would not support the creation of a Palestinian state as long as he was prime minister, a reversal of his earlier stance supporting a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The creation of a Palestinian state were the focus of nine months of negotiations last year led by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. | |
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said late Tuesday that President Obama “remains committed to working very closely” with whoever wins the Israeli premiership. | |
Turnout was high, with almost 72 percent of eligible voters going to the polls. Leaders of the Arab parties suggested that Arab Israeli turnout reached 65 percent, far higher than in the country’s last national elections, in 2013. | |
Netanyahu and Likud surged past the last round of pre-election opinion surveys on Friday that showed Likud trailing Herzog’s alliance by three or four seats. | |
Before the vote, pundits were beginning to write the first drafts of Netanyahu’s political obituary. Reporters asked him in interviews what he planned to do in retirement. | |
But in the past five days, Netanyahu took to the airwaves, warning repeatedly that Herzog and the left were going to turn over land to the Palestinians and divide Jerusalem. | |
“Israelis said very clearly yes today to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Likud to continue to lead the country,” said Silvan Shalom, a Likud party leader who said he was confident that Netanyahu would succeed in forming the next government. | |
“It’s a big victory for the Likud,” said Likud member Danny Danon, a former deputy defense minister. “This is a win for the right, and all my friends on the left need to acknowledge this win.” | |
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin will now ask party leaders to come to his residence and signal to him whom they want to lead the next coalition government. | |
The linchpin of a possible Netanyahu-led government now appears to be Moshe Kahlon, a former Likud minister who left that party to form his own, called Kulanu, which won nine or 10 seats, according to exit polls. Kahlon tweeted that it was a “great success.” | |
Kahlon became popular with voters after he broke up cellphone monopolies and the prices for mobile minutes plummeted. His party’s candidates include Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, who rebuked Netanyahu for addressing Congress in the polarizing speech on Iran this month. | |
Before the election, Kahlon refused to say whether he would join a coalition led by Netanyahu or Herzog. But with a strong finish by Netanyahu, most analysts now assume he will side with Netanyahu, because Kahlon’s politics are more closely aligned with Likud than with Labor. | |
As voting was underway Tuesday, Netanyahu said his government was “in danger,” notably from a turnout of Arab Israeli voters. The alarm from Netanyahu reflected the tight margins in his bid to hold back a surging challenge from Herzog. | |
Netanyahu, 65, who has served as prime minister for nine years spread over three terms, appeared set to easily win an unprecedented fourth term when he called the election in December, two years early. | Netanyahu, 65, who has served as prime minister for nine years spread over three terms, appeared set to easily win an unprecedented fourth term when he called the election in December, two years early. |
Herzog, 54, the son of a former president and grandson of a prominent rabbi, mounted an unexpectedly strong campaign, capitalizing on economic malaise and what some voters described as weariness with Netanyahu. | Herzog, 54, the son of a former president and grandson of a prominent rabbi, mounted an unexpectedly strong campaign, capitalizing on economic malaise and what some voters described as weariness with Netanyahu. |
Ruth Eglash contributed to this report. | |