Why Israeli election deadlock raises prospect of yet another poll

What is the difference between the exit poll projections on Wednesday night and the actual results?

Exit polls from Israel’s three main television stations predicted the opposition, anti-Netanyahu bloc would have a few seats more than the prime minister’s bloc, with the two Arab parties receiving the remaining seats.

But with more than 85 per cent of the votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc has 53 seats, compared to only 48 for the change bloc, with 19 seats for the two Arab parties. Likud is by far the largest party with a projected 26 seats, followed by Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, with 21. (A pro-Netanyahu television station had exit polls that were much closer to the actual result, but this was dismissed by most pundits as a reflection of wishful thinking.)

The surge in votes for the Arab parties made it much more difficult for either bloc to come close to the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority.

Are these the final results?

No, all the parties are now waiting for the final tally count, expected on Friday after the soldiers’ votes are tallied. This year, with so many Israelis drafted to army service, the vote is very large, some 600,000 votes, representing some 15 mandates. The soldiers’ vote generally tends to favour the right-wing parties, with hardly any extra votes for the Arab or ultra-Orthodox parties.

Given that Netanyahu has done better than exit poll predictions, what are the political implications?

New elections in the spring seems the best option for Netanyahu.

He won’t say this publicly and if, as expected, he is given the mandate by president Yitzhak Herzog to form a government, he will stress the need for national unity as he attempts to persuade one of the opposition parties from the change bloc to join his coalition.

Addressing his Likud party faithful in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Netanyahu said the right wing had a “great majority” among Israel’s “Zionist public” and urged the formation of a “strong right-wing government”. He noted that Likud remains Israel’s biggest party.

Why would a new election suit Netanyahu?

A re-run election suits Netanyahu because he would continue as caretaker prime minister. Next time he can ensure there will be no small right-wing parties “wasting” tens of thousands of votes for his bloc because they failed to cross the electoral threshold. And next time it is unlikely there will be tens of thousands of Israelis flying home to vote against Netanyahu. It is also doubtful that Tuesday’s huge turnout in the Arab sector can be repeated.

Then there’s the Iran factor. Toppling the ayatollah regime is Netanyahu’s lifetime mission and it’s no secret that he would welcome a resumption of the joint US-Israeli strikes against Tehran. It’s a high-risk strategy and is unlikely to bring about the fall of the regime but it could significantly weaken Israel’s sworn enemy, and Netanyahu sees political benefit in such a scenario. A resumption of the war after the US midterms remains a real possibility.

Can the opposition bloc still form a minority government, with Arab parties providing a Knesset safety net?

In theory, yes, and the left-wing Democrats party is pushing for this, but this option really needed the change bloc to be larger than the Netanyahu bloc and for Yashar to be the largest party. Without this, such a minority coalition would have little public legitimacy.

So what happens now?

We can expect weeks, if not months, of coalition negotiations with no certainty that any candidate will be able to cobble together a coalition.