Rivals or would-be partners?

Likud leader, the outgoing prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has won a fourth term as prime minister after a last-ditch electioneering blitz carried his party past the frontrunner in the polls, opposition leader, Yitzhak Herzog of Zionist Union,by one seat (28 to 27). Netanyahu will quickly start negotiations with the smaller parties to form a coalition government.
Other results: The Joint list of Arab factions – 13; Yair Lapid’s Future – 11-12; Moshe Kachlon’s Kulanu – 9; Naftali Bennett’s Bayit Yehudi – 8; Ultra-religious Shas – 7; Torah Front- 6; far-left Meretz and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Shelano – 5 each.

Final results are expected sometime Wednesday after the ballots are counted manually.

Netanyahu has phoned right-wing Bennett and former Likud minister Kachlon, whose party ran for election for the first time on a social ticket, to discuss their joining his new government. Lapid was disappointed by dropping 7 seats from his showing in the last election. Then, he sailed into government with 19 seats as finance minister. The Joint Arab list is disappointed by the low turnout of the Arab vote.

Monday night, in the final hours before Israel’s fiercely contested general election Tuesday, March 17, the four-seat margin the polls had awarded Yitzhak Herzog’s opposition left-of-center Zionist Union against Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-of-center Likud was shrinking fast.

debkafile’s sources, which tapped into some of the inside estimates, found these two frontrunners frantically crunching numbers in a race that might well turn out to be too close to call.

Whaever happens, neither of the two biggest parties can expect to form a government without coalition partners. According to last-minute estimates, the Zionist Union expected 26 (out of 120) Knesset seats compared with Likud’s 23, while Likud confirmed its rival’s 26 seats, but awarded itself 24.

The gap had closed from four to two seats between them.
Barring surprise upsets – to which Israeli elections are often prone - the figures had enhanced the Likud leader’s chances of forming the next government compared with Herzog.

The latter would have to depend on Yair Lapid’s centrist Future party, a partnership that would automatically cut the religious parties out of the equation.

Herzog in recent days fought against this calculus with an intense last-ditch effort to peel voters away from Future so as to leave open the alternative option of inviting two or three of the religious factions to eke out his administration.

The second hurdle in Herzog’s path to the prime minister’s office was the falling fortunes of the far-left Meretz, headed by Zahava Galon, which faces the danger of not making it past the new threshold limit. This would leave the Zionist Union bereft of its safest partner.

It was this potential setback which brought the Zionist Union’s co-leader Tzipi Livni rushing into the breach. The deal for the merger of her party with the Zionist Union entailed a promise to rotate the premiership between Herzog and herself – two years each – if the party was able to form a government.

In the past week, Zionist Union strategists estimated that this deal would cost the party valuable votes. Ceding her turn at the premiership on behald of the party of which she is co-leader, would be worth another two or three Knesset seats - enough for a game-changer.
Netanyahu is saddled with his own problems. Two factions which he counted on to eke out his coalition, Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu and Ellie Yishai’s Yahad (breakaway from the ultra-religious Shas), may like Mertz fall at the threshold barrier.

Livni’s eve-of-election gesture made it easier for Herzog either to form a cabinet or more likely join Netanyahu in a unity government with Likud, an option that would depend on the way the electorate votes Tuesday.
Balloting stations open at 7 am Tuesday. The first exit polls are promised seconds after 2200.

http://debka.com/article/24467/Binyamin-Netanyahu-wins-fourth-term-as-PM-according-to-exit-polls-

....... Interesting ................

Congratulation Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

If you can defeat your opponents combined, then our own Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan shall surely defeat his own opponents put together

Na dem sabi......for now the only date I know is march 28........

israel will form a coalition govt though i hate bibi

Congratulation to Netanyahu.
Congratulation to GEJ in advance.
GEJ till 2019

Global Ploy To Defeat Jonathan, Netanyahu?

Whoever is supporting anybody against Dr. Goodluck Jonathan shall fail after the order of Netanyahu opponents.


http://www.punchng.com/columnists/punchwise/global-ploy-to-defeat-jonathan-netanyahu/

I love that man and Putin.

chidekings:
I love that man and Putin.

I believe you have your reasons

I keep seeing similarity between GEJ and Netanyahu!God bless the two leaders.

Culled from Ibrahim on facebook:

For building Almajiri school alone, i and my family will vote for GEJ, because they said BUHARI fought for corruption in the past but achieved nothing. So what can he boast that he achieved for us back then? Am educated to know better.

Election is too close to call.

The Final result is not in yet and the opposition can still form a coalition. stop misleading people

You are believing Debka file news?. Knowledge able people only read debkafile for espionage rumours. Please discontinuance the story. The results will be known tomorrow.

Congrats again!

congratulation BiBi

Not so fast, the final results are not yet out.
The system of government in Israel is a lot different from Nigeria!!!!!