In recent years, the declarations of victory following the release of exit polls have practically become a predictable spectacle, even though time after time, those who were quick to declare victory end the week with the final results which do not give them what they had hoped for. You would think that the first to declare victory is the one who seizes it, or creates a public perception that ties them to victory – but this is not the case.
What we saw on Monday is undoubtedly a personal victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Anyone who eulogized his political career or thought that he would not win public backing after he was indicted for such serious offenses, saw the phoenix rise once again, never taking a break from high-energy rallies, interviews to every station, releasing personal videos from his yard until he finally managed to get Likud voters who thought about not voting, out of their homes and into the polling stations.
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But ever since Netanyahu lost Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu as a natural part of the right-wing-ultra-Orthodox bloc, the challenge of victory has become that much more difficult for him.
It is no longer enough that Likud is the largest party, or that the right-wing-ultra-Orthodox bloc is the largest. The battle is for the 61st seat – and without that seat, Netanyahu will be faced with a counter bloc that will prevent him from establishing a government. The double-envelope ballots and those of the Coronavirus-isolation voters delay the publication of the final (though still not official) results, and until that happens, no one can talk about a "huge victory" or that there will not be a fourth round of elections.
Talk of possible defections from other parties is speculative: this possibility was also raised after the last two rounds and the rumors never came true. In other words, if it turns out in the coming days that Netanyahu did not get 61 seats, the political system will be in the same place it was after the 21st Knesset elections last April.
At the point when Lieberman made his surprise announcement that he will not join a coalition with the ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu made his surprise move and set the wheels in motion for a new election before he was due to inform President Reuven Rivlin that he had failed in forming a coalition. In the interim, Israel has been worn down by another two rounds of elections, and the feeling is that a fourth-round will be one round too many.
A situation where Netanyahu's bloc does not have 61 seats will be a situation where neither side has won, despite his dramatic achievement. It will be a situation where even the most vehement opponents to the idea of a national unity government will have to take to the streets and demand its formation.
