The Central Election Committee on Thursday completed the tabulation of virtually all outstanding ballots on Thursday, confirming what has gradually emerged from Tuesday: The political gridlock that has plagued Israel's Knesset for two years will continue for the near term and possibly lead to another early election.
Votes to be certified in the coming days and then submitted to the president, who will have the daunting task of figuring out who will can assemble a government. This will trigger a several-month period in which the designated prime minister would have to swear in a government in a confidence vote in the Knesset, but unless parties renege on their election promises, this will be virtually impossible to achieve.
The outcome of the new tabulation did not yield major shifts in seats, and hence the only thing left to do is verify vote accuracies and certify the results and thus it is safe to say that the bloc of parties that have pledged to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained bigger, but not enough to form a government without Yamina.
This despite Netanyahu's Likud having an impressive showing of 30 seats, making it by far the largest party. Netanyahu could still form a coalition and secure a sixth term in office, but that would require enlisting the Islamist party Ra'am and convincing his right-wing allies to accept this.
The bottom line is that more political gridlock can be expected, and potentially another early election as early as this summer.
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The breakdown by party is as follows:
These results give the right-wing bloc 52 mandates and the Center-Left bloc 57 seats. Yamina and Ra'am hold the key to the elections, as they can side with either bloc.
Voter turnout in this year's election was particularly low, with only 67.2% – the lowest in the last four election campaigns.
Central Election Committee head Orly Adas said the final results are likely to come in on Friday.
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