Israel election results: No clear winner projected, what’s next?

Exit polls from Israel’s legislative elections have come in, with no party or bloc projected to secure a clear mandate to form a new government.

According to The Times of Israel, the partial results give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc 56 seats and the opposition alliance 48.

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That could leave neither bloc with the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat parliament, setting the stage for weeks or months of political jockeying to form Israel’s next government.

The results also show the Arab-led parties, which are not part of either coalition, on course to secure 16 seats. This means the Arab-led parties could emerge as kingmakers if other parties agree to join forces with them.

Here’s what comes next:

What are the exit poll projections for the Israeli parties?

Here’s the breakdown, according to The Times of Israel, with over 66 percent of ballots counted.

Netanyahu’s ruling bloc is leading on 56 seats:

Likud – 28

United Torah Judaism – 8

Shas – 7

Otzma Yehudit – 7

Religious Zionism – 6

The opposition alliance is ahead on 48 seats:

Yashar – 21

B’Yachad – 11

Yisrael Beytenu – 8

The Democrats – 8

Arab-led parties are on course to win 16 seats:

Joint List – 12

Ra’am – 4

How have parties reacted?

Gadi Eisenkot, the main challenger to the incumbent prime minister, said the exit polls show a “lack of confidence” in Netanyahu, while Yair Lapid, the current opposition leader, said the prime minister’s bloc has suffered a “crushing defeat”.

“This is a total collapse, and the public has told them to go home,” Lapid said.

But Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister and a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the opposition’s celebrations were premature.

In a social media post, he said: “Likud is the largest party in Israel. It is always good to learn something from the past.”

Netanyahu, who heads Likud, has served as prime minister for nearly 19 of the past 30 years and has repeatedly survived political crises.

Ehab Jabareen, a Palestinian political analyst and researcher based in Israel, told Al Jazeera that early exit poll projections show “a clear weakening of Netanyahu’s bloc” but expressed caution about “declaring either a Netanyahu victory or the end of his political career”.

“The exit polls suggest that his bloc has lost its majority, but they also suggest that his opponents face a difficult task in building one,” he said. “If neither side can form a government, Netanyahu could remain in office as caretaker while the negotiations continue.”

Who will the president nominate to form a government?

It remains to be seen.

Once the final vote tally is announced on November 4, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will speak with party leaders about who they want as prime minister, then tap the candidate he believes has the best chance of forming a government.

That will not necessarily be the leader of the party that won the most seats in the Knesset.

With Netanyahu and Eisenkot’s parties emerging as the strongest, the two are viewed as leading contenders.

How much time will the invited leader have to form a coalition?

Up to 42 days. The candidate initially has 28 days, but the president can extend it by 14 days.

During this time, parties could engage in intensive negotiations and dealmaking, seeking policy concessions or potential ministerial portfolios, as the designated candidate tries to cobble together enough support to govern.

If the candidate cannot assemble a coalition with at least 61 seats, they could also try to form a minority government by relying on support from smaller parties, or negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with alternating prime ministers.

To be sworn in, a new government must win a parliamentary confidence vote by a simple majority, which can be fewer than 61 votes if a number of parties abstain.

What if negotiations fail?

If the first candidate fails to form a government, Herzog has the option of asking another Knesset member to try to do so within 28 days. If that candidate also fails, a majority of Knesset members could put forward a third candidate, who would have a final 14 days to try to assemble one.

If the Knesset remains at an impasse, it would be formally dissolved, and Israelis would return to the polls for another round of elections.

Those elections would have to be called within 90 days. In the meantime, Netanyahu’s government would remain in office as a caretaker government.

Has this happened before?

Yes.

Prolonged gridlock in the Knesset forced Israelis into three rounds of elections between April 2019 and March 2020. The result was a power-sharing agreement between Netanyahu and his then-chief rival, Benny Gantz, under which they were supposed to rotate the prime ministership.

That government collapsed a year later after failing to pass a budget.

Will the opposition form a coalition with the Arab-led parties?

While the exit polls suggest the Arab-led parties could become kingmakers, both Netanyahu and Eisenkot have ruled out partnering with them, citing a lack of shared values.

Asaf Ronel, an Israeli political analyst, said that while exit polls suggest an end to Netanyahu’s “nightmarish government”, there are serious questions about whether other leaders can overcome their “racism and refusal” to collaborate with the Arab-led groups.

“The question now is whether they can let go of their racist election promise, otherwise the most likely scenario is that we are back to another round of elections in the next few months,” he said.

Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, said ignoring Arab-led parties will prove a difficult stance to maintain as negotiations continue.

“The numbers are going to make it difficult without that block, that large block, of seats for the Arab parties. It’s going to be difficult to get to that magic number,” he said, referring to the 61 seats required for a majority.

Bazzi also foresees an arrangement where the Arab parties could come to a compromise with Eisenkot’s opposition bloc.

“They could be invited in a form where they don’t actually have any ministries and where they don’t really have power in the governing coalition, but they would provide their support in the Knesset,” he explained.