The exit polls of the fifth elections in Israel since 2019 gave the bloc of former Prime Minister and leader of the conservative Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu, victory with 61 to 63 of the 120 MPs against the broad coalition he led, the centrist Yair Lapid, who defeated him last year wrested power. The extreme right, which has increased its representation to 150%, benefits most from the high turnout of 66.3% by 8 p.m., unprecedented since 1999. If the count confirms this, Israel is on track to resolve the political deadlock that has made it the country that has voted the most every 2.4 years since 1996.
The three exit polls on national television channels 11, 12 and 13, broadcast at 22:00 (21:00 in mainland Spain), give Likud victory with between 30 and 31 seats (30 in year 2021). The other three lists of the pro-Netanyahu bloc add between 31 and 33 MPs.
One of them, Religious Zionism, makes a big jump in just one year: from six to 14 or 15 MPs. The three-party list with an ultranationalist, racist and homophobic message would become the third force in the Knesset. His number two, Itamar Ben Gvir, was the sensation of the campaign and the parsley of all debate, marking what is being talked about and how it is being talked about with the rest of the armed forces.
The other two lists supporting Netanyahu, the leader who has ruled Israel the longest (15), represent ultra-Orthodox Jews. The Sephardic Shas increases from nine to ten seats and Ashkenazi Torah United Judaism remains at seven.
The ruling bloc falls to 51-58, despite the increase (from 17 to 22-24) of Prime Minister Lapid’s party Yesh Atid, who on Tuesday wanted to symbolically bridge three generations. First he visited the grave of his father, fellow journalist Tommy Lapid, who co-headed a secular party opposed to the ultra-Orthodox Shinui, the Justice Department, with Ariel Sharon. Then, when voting in Tel Aviv, he urged the population to go out and vote: “For the future of our children and our country.”
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National Unity, led by Secretary of Defense Benny Gantz, is reducing its presence (from 11 to 13) compared to the 14 that the two parties that make it up, Blue and White and New Hope, received separately in 2021. And Israel Beitenu, by Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, falls from seven to four or five. They are two of Netanyahu’s ex-partners who switched sides when they felt betrayed.
The historic Labor Party and Meretz’s pacifist left are saving the dishes by exceeding the 3.25% of the vote required for parliamentary representation. Meretz will have four or five MPs while Labor will have five or six. Well-known journalist Merav Mijaeli has not succeeded in bringing the Labor Party, which has ruled the country for the first three decades, out of obscurity, nor has Zehava Gal-On succeeded in reviving a Meretz still plagued by stigmata and internal struggles. The United Arab List gains one seat and stands at five, in a endorsement of its decision to become the first representative of the Palestinian minority with Israeli citizenship to enter the government since the country’s founding in 1948.
Outside the blocks, only one other Arabic list remains, Hadash-Taal. She was ready to back Lapid’s inauguration without entering government, more out of fear of the far right than conviction, but her four MPs are far from finally adding 61.
Yair Lapid, at his polling station in Tel Aviv this Tuesday POOL (Portal)
The division created by Netanyahu was felt from the very first hour even in one of his fiefdoms, Jerusalem. A group of girls complained that a passer-by refused to take a picture of them next to the phrase “Rak Bibi” (Only Bibi). And many at a polling station near the historic Nahalat Shiva district couldn’t help but show their support or dislike for Netanyahu as they passed the Likud booth.
One of them, Itzhak Levi, 65, put a party sticker on his jersey. “Let everyone see!” he said, before pointing at a poster of Netanyahu and adding excitedly, “What a pity he’s so old [73 años]! Who will later be like him!? we need it because [los judíos] we have only one state and so many enemies…”.
Despite Netanyahu’s close support as Levi’s, he didn’t seem to have it all with him while the elections were still open. Earlier this morning, he posted a 10-minute direct on Facebook, in which he reviewed the feuds in which he was modestly involved and called on his followers to “set the alarm clock” and against “the Lapid government and the Muslim Brotherhood.” voices. . With Israel declaring election day – always Tuesday – a public holiday, he began touring shopping malls, where he asserted he saw “many” of his supporters while the left filled the ballot boxes with ballots. In an attempt to encourage his own participation, he tweeted a montage of two photos: one of people queuing, with the phrase “Left-wing ballot box in Tel Aviv,” and another of an empty corridor, with ” Ballot of the Likud in Holon”, a nearby town. The picture is actually from 2019.
אחוזי הצבעה נמוכים במעוזי הליכוד>> רק מחל! pic.twitter.com/vz8c5yvN5D
– Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 1, 2022
Abraham, who describes himself as “fairly right-wing and fairly religious,” did not vote for him. He believes that “the time has come for him to resign” and prefers National Unity, Gantz’s party, despite governing with two left-wing formations and one Arab. He emigrated from the US in 2018 at the age of 59 and believes that “Israel belongs only to the Jews” and that creating a Palestinian state would be “dangerous” but also that the country must consider the “differing perspectives”. that it accommodates and “gets along with your neighbors.” This is exactly what Gantz – the only candidate openly defending a coalition between forces from both blocs – said when he cast his ballot: “We’re fed up with the hustle and polarization.”
Abraham’s daughter, Eliza, 21, a soldier in a combat force in the army (which in the girls’ case means volunteering and getting the green light from family), chose Zionism instead, religiously which he referred to as religious “slightly to the right.” “Everyone puts the center in one spot, right?” he clarifies. In the 18 to 24 age group, it is further to the right (70%) than the national average (63%).
A man is voting in a special ballot box for people quarantined by Covid this Tuesday in Jerusalem.
Religious Zionism had more young people handing out leaflets throughout the city, from the Christian Quarter of the Old City to the privileged Rehavia, than any other formation. The general sentiment among his supporters was, as his campaign slogan puts it, “Ben Gvir’s time has come”. According to exit polls, no other force has risen as much. Their enthusiasm contrasted with that of the majority of voters from the other parties, who justified their vote on the lesser evil or fear of being expelled from Parliament.
Such is the case of Sonia Kazovsky. He is 33 years old and has lived in Amsterdam since he was 20. Like hundreds of thousands of other eligible Israelis living abroad, you can only vote in-person in the country. “I didn’t come on purpose, but since he caught me here, I will,” he said at the gate of the polling station. Previously he opted for Arab parties, but this time he hesitated between Labor and Meretz until the last moment. He opted for the second, who rejoined the executive branch in 2021 for the first time in two decades. “I’m not sure if I identify with the left, but I see it easier for Merav to pass [Mijaeli] this Zehava [Gal-On], so I decided to help her.” “Definitely,” he adds, “everything is very difficult here, very violent. It should come from “my body, my decision” from Amsterdam to identity politics”.
Shalom, 73, also opted for Meretz: “I’ve always voted for the left. I won’t stop now if it needs a boost. I am aware that I am a minority here now. The left has moved to Los Angeles [considerada la ciudad fuera del país en la que viven más israelíes]. All of Israel went right.”
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