Senior Democratic Union candidate and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak voiced optimism on Tuesday that the preliminary election results show that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 13-year premiership may soon come to an end.
"The conditions have been created for Netanyahu's political demise," Barak said, reiterating the Left's pledge not to sit with Netanyahu so long as he is pending indictment in three separate corruption cases. The Left hopes that by refusing to sit with Netanyahu, the Likud will replace him as party leader and agree to send him home.
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Chairman of the Democratic Union Nitzan Horowitz did not wait to react to the exit polls, vowing to continue fighting the Right.
"I call on the Labor party to join us and create a large faction that will in future serve as a platform for all left-wing voters in Israel, and will go on to fight for the leadership of the country," Horowitz said.
Labor-Gesher leader Amir Peretz told party activists: "I thank everyone for their immense efforts and ask you all to wait until the final results are in, and all our friends at the polling stations finish their work."
Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh announced after the initial results were in: "Our votes have prevented Netanyahu from forming a government. This is something historic." Another Arab MK, Ahmad Tibi, ruled out sitting with the Zionist Left in a government, although he did not rule out unofficially backing a center-left government.
Blue and White apparently preferred to take the early results of the 2019 do-over election with a grain of salt, waiting before making any dramatic announcement.
This was in contrast to Chairman Benny Gantz's premature victory speech after the April election, which was widely ridiculed.
