As of 9pm Taiwan time on the 28th, the vote count for the Israeli general election has reached 85%. Preliminary votes and exit polls show that the hardline coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to win 53 seats, the opposition camp led by former general Eisenkot about 48 seats, and Arab parties are expected to win 19 seats. Neither side has reached the 61 seats required to obtain a majority in Congress and cannot form a separate government. Israel may face weeks of political deadlock.
The turnout for this general election reached 77.7%, a record high in at least 25 years. Most votes are expected to be counted on the 28th, but it will still take several days for the final results to be available. It is worth noting that the exit polls did not include the hundreds of thousands of votes cast in special polling stations such as military bases, hospitals, prisons and embassies; referring to the experience of the 2022 election, these votes are more biased towards Natanyahu and his allies. With the subsequent counting of votes, there is still room for his camp to increase its seats.
According to the New York Times, some of Natanyahu's allies have floated the idea that Netanyahu could form a unity government with Eisenkot and other centrist figures to continue to govern. Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister until a government is formed.
But a unity government may make it difficult for Eisenkot to justify himself because he has long condemned Netanyahu as unfit to lead Israel and opposed cooperation with Arab parties in a potential coalition. The two major Arab parties are expected to win as many as 19 seats and become the "kingmakers" in the cabinet deadlock. They may be Eisenkot's only way to overthrow Netanyahu. On the 28th, Eisenkot only promised to establish a "stable Zionist government" and did not mention Arab parties.
After the election, Netanyahu told supporters that his United Party had become the largest political party in Israel and said: "We must form a strong right-wing government."
Faced with Netanyahu's post-election hints that he might join forces with the United States to attack Iran again, Eisenkot warned him in his post-election speech not to abuse his power as caretaker prime minister and "don't dare to use Israel's security for your political needs."
Never in Israeli history has a single party won a majority on its own. The process of forming a cabinet must be authorized by the president. Within 7 days after the official results are announced, President Herzog will meet with representatives of each party group. He is not obliged to pick the leader of the party with the most votes, but rather to decide who has the best chance of forming a coalition that wins a vote of confidence. The authorized person has a 28-day negotiation period, which can be extended by 14 days. If he fails, the president can choose a second candidate, but the deadline is 28 days and cannot be extended. If it fails again, a majority of members of Congress can ask for a third candidate to try, within a 14-day period. If a government still cannot be formed, re-election will be announced. Herzog had called on all parties to avoid holding another election on the 28th, and hoped that all political parties would be "open-minded" when negotiating to form a government.
The law technically allows for "minority governments" that can obtain the support of a relative majority. According to statistics from the "Israel Democracy Institute", it historically takes about 20 to 100 days to form a government.
