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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be headed toward re-election early Wednesday, as exit polls and partial results showed him surging ahead of his main competitor in a tight race that was seen as a referendum on the long-serving leader.
Israeli exit polls indicated earlier that Netanyahu's Likud party and Benny Gantz's rival Blue and White party were locked in a race that is too close to call.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and rival locked in close race
April 9, 201900:58Both sides claimed victory after the exit poll results were released. But as the night went on, there were growing signs that Netanyahu's Likud was pulling ahead.
"The right bloc in the Likud won a definite victory. I thank the citizens of Israel for their trust. I will begin forming a right-wing government with our natural partners tonight," Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew.
"We won!" Gantz tweeted in Hebrew. "The people of Israel have spoken! Thanks to thousands of activists and over a million voters. In these elections there is a clear winner and a clear loser. Bibi promised 40 seats and lost big time."
Gantz also spoke live at the Blue and White party's headquarters, where he said that he would be the prime minister for all of Israel's people.
"There are winners in the elections and there are losers. We are the winners," Gantz said. "We will await the true results and will work to establish as broad a government as possible."
But as results trickled in throughout the night, the Likud appeared to be gaining strength. Two stations projected Likud to win 35 seats in parliament, compared to 34 for Blue and White. With about 60 percent of the votes counted, Likud held a narrow lead.
Though both parties were well short of a majority in the 120-seat parliament, the polls showed Likud and its religious and nationalist allies controlling a solid majority.
If Netanyahu's Likud party succeeds in forming a parliamentary majority and he again serves as prime minister, it would be his fourth consecutive and fifth overall term, making him the longest-serving leader in the country's history.
The election has been widely seen as a referendum on the scandal-plagued Netanyahu, who in the waning days of the campaign pledged to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank if re-elected.
His campaign was severely tested by Gantz, 59, a former head of the Israeli Defense Forces and a political novice who formed the Blue and White Party, a coalition of centrists and former military officers, on a promise of clean government and social harmony.
Gantz, a retired three-star general, sent a jolt through Israeli politics this year when he partnered with centrist politician and former television host Yair Lapid to form the new party. If elected, Gantz would lead the government for two and a half years, with Lapid the remainder of the four-year term.
Gantz hit out at Netanyahu over the series of scandals swirling around him. Netanyahu tried to portray Gantz as inexperienced and weak.
"This is a day of hope, a day of unity," Gantz said earlier Tuesday as he cast his vote in Rosh HaAyin near Tel Aviv. "I look into everyone's eyes and know that we can connect."
"This is truly the essence of democracy," Netanyahu said at a polling station in Jerusalem with his wife, Sara. "With God's help, the state of Israel will prevail. Thank you very much. Go to vote."
While exit polls indicate where the main parties stand, building a government is an uncertain and sometimes tortuous process.
Neither the Blue and White nor Likud are expected to win an outright majority — no Israeli party ever has in the 120-seat Parliament — which means a larger party will have to form a coalition with smaller ones.
More than 40 parties competed in the elections, including ultra-Orthodox religious parties, Arab factions and fringe movements such as the Pirate and Simply Love party. Only a handful are expected to win the 3.25 percent of the vote necessary to break the electoral threshold and earn the minimum four seats in Parliament.
Negotiations could take days or even weeks. After final results are released in around 24 hours or so, President Reuven Rivlin will meet with party leaders and select the one he believes is most capable of forming a coalition based on each party’s recommendations.
That party, usually but not always the largest faction, then has four weeks to form a coalition. A new government will be given the four-year term, but disagreements between coalition parties often result in early elections.
Ahead of the election, polls showed the Blue and White in the lead, but Netanyahu — who has led a series of right-wing coalitions — looked more likely to form a coalition. Should neither bloc be able to form the coalition, Israel could face the prospect of a second election in November.
Israeli election: Netanyahu's fate up for grabs as voters cast ballots
April 9, 201901:59Election Day is a national holiday and Israeli elections tend to have high turnout. The last elections in 2015 saw voter turnout of 72 percent. But Arab voters, who make up 20 percent of the electorate, were expected to boycott the vote amid accusations that Netanyahu was inciting the public against them.
Netanyahu has run a series of right-wing governments that have included religious, far-right and marginal parties. But his recent decision to forge an alliance with a fringe extremist party inspired by an American-born rabbi, Meir Kahane, who advocated a Jewish theocracy and the forced removal of Palestinians, raised alarm among even some Netanyahu allies.
The passage in July of the “nation-state” law declaring that only Israel's Jews had the right of self-determination and stripping Arabic of its designation as an official language alongside Hebrew was also decried by critics who say it institutionalized discrimination.
Serious scandal dogged Netanyahu's run. On Feb. 28, Israel's attorney general recommended indicting Netanyahu on bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three different cases. He has also been caught up in a scandal involving the $2 billion purchase of submarines from a German company. Police have recommended that Netanyahu's personal attorney, who is also his cousin, be indicted on charges of bribery and money laundering, although the prime minister himself is not a suspect.
Netanyahu has called the investigations a “witch hunt.”
During the campaign, he highlighted his close relationship with President Donald Trump — an especially popular figure in Israel even when compared to decades of close relations between the countries.
Trump has made a series of decisions that have endeared him to Netanyahu and to many Israeli voters. Washington's withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran — which many Israelis see as an existential threat — was a coup for Netanyahu. Then came the decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. And on March 21, Trump recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
In addition, Trump's ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is popular among Israeli right-wing voters. He has written articles against a two-state solution and given money to groups supporting Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Netanyahu visited the White House on March 25 — underscoring the relationship. And Monday, he issued a personal message to Trump after the administration announced it was designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
"Thank you, my dear friend," he said. "Thank you for responding to another important request of mine, which serves the interests of our countries and countries of the region."
