With 91% Counted, Netanyahu's Bloc on 53 Seats as Israel's Coalition Talks Begin

With 91 percent of votes counted in Israel's national election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc is projected to win 53 seats. The grouping of his opponent Gadi Eisenkot is on 48 seats, while the Palestinian parties are on course for a record 19 seats.

A majority in the Knesset requires 61 seats. With no grouping reaching that number, Israel could face weeks of uncertainty as both sides try to gather enough support to form a government.

The final tally of absentee ballots is under way. Israel's Central Elections Committee said the count began at 1am local time and could last until Thursday evening, with an estimated 500,000 ballots from military personnel and diplomats to be tallied.

That final count is not expected to shift the results significantly. Under Israeli electoral law, each voter is assigned a specific polling station and can vote only there; in exceptional circumstances, however, soldiers stationed at army bases, diplomats working abroad, prisoners and prison guards, and people in hospital may vote at special polling stations. Those ballots are transported directly to the Knesset and undergo a series of checks before counting, which is why they arrive in the final count much later.

Coalition talks, meanwhile, are about to begin formally. Yair Golan, leader of the centre-left Democrats — a junior partner in Eisenkot's bloc — has told Israeli media he will meet leaders on Thursday for coalition talks. According to the Times of Israel, he will hold talks with Gadi Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate and chair of the Yashar party, and Yair Lapid, the number-two in the opposition B'Yachad party.

Golan has so far been the only opposition leader backing working with the parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel. “Netanyahu lost. I know how to count,” he said, calling for a government with Palestinians, who make up about 20 percent of Israel's population.

“We must no longer accept Netanyahu's racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes,” Golan said. “We have a majority. We have a responsibility. And we have an opportunity to form a change government in partnership with Arab citizens of Israel.”

Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, voiced hope that the country could avoid a second election. Herzog, who is tasked with determining which candidate to tap to form a government, said: “We must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections,” urging parties to keep “an open mind”.

Yousef Jabareen, head of the Arab-majority Joint List, said the Israeli public had voted for new leadership and that “anyone who wants to offer a substantive and genuine alternative to Netanyahu's blood-soaked government will have to talk to us”. He told AFP that while he was willing to cooperate with an opposition-led government to unseat Netanyahu, he was not open to joining such a coalition outright.

Israel's Central Elections Committee said it had received a Likud party complaint alleging that Arab parties had compromised election integrity, and that it would examine the claims as part of its routine post-election review. Netanyahu's party responded to partial results showing Arab-led parties could play a king-making role by accusing them, without evidence, of “stealing” the election and demanding that police and the Shin Bet security service investigate.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said he hopes the next Israeli government will “change course massively” and respect international law. “The message is: don't continue the current course of warfare where you think you are above international law,” Turk told reporters in New York. He added that Israel has obligations under international law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and needs to respect them.

A survey taken as polls closed on election day showed that a clear majority of opposition voters supported forming a government with the Palestinian-led Ra'am in order to unseat Netanyahu, political psychology researcher Eran Halperin said.