Left-wing Meretz activists were disappointed by the early exit polls on Tuesday night after Israeli media reported the party was likely to garner only as much as five seats, with the overall left-wing bloc likely to lose power.
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Only a meager 30 people arrived at party headquarters in Tel Aviv and tried to drive some energy to the party stalwarts watching the returns, shouting with joy after the reports showed it had secured enough votes to enter the Knesset.
However, as it emerged that Right and its allies were projected to win 61 seats under initial estimates, the atmosphere quickly shifted to doom and gloom.
MK Mossi Raz called the development "a sad day for Israel." He said that the "rise of the radical Right is not what we wanted, and though we feared we might not enter parliament, I expected more than 4 or 5 seats. I hope the final results give us a better showing, but we know what exit polls mean." According to Raz it was "very sad that the third-largest party would be the radical Right party," referring to the Religious ZIonist Party joint list with Otzma Yehudit and the National Union.
Some of the activists said the party should still wait before declaring defeat. "It can't be that everyone just voted for Ben-Gvir," referring to Otzma Yehudit far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir. "He is a great actor and played to people's fears."
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