On Wednesday morning, less than 12 hours after polls closed, over 80% of the vote had been counted, all but confirming that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would return to power due to the strong showing of his Likud party and its allies in the Knesset.
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Meretz, the left-wing party that has been part and parcel of the Left since its founding in 1992, was on the verge of losing any representation, having apparently failed to meet the minimum threshold to enter the Knesset: 3.25% of the valid vote count.
Like Meretz, the Arab fringe party Balad also failed to get the required share of the vote and was all but guaranteed to stay out of the legislative chamber, having chosen to run on its own rather than on a joint list with other predominantly Arab parties like it did in the previous four elections.
On Tuesday night, 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 initial 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, and later on Wednesday, there was once again the threat of being left out of the Knesset.
Efforts to unite Labor and Meretz by having them run on a joint ticket in the Knesset failed despite experts warning that failing to do so would likely make one of them fail to cross the threshold. Labor barely made it, with a projected slate of five seats according to exit polls.
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