Tight, even illegible results. The day after the legislative elections in Israel, the two main blocs are neck and neck on Wednesday October 28. According to results based on 70% of the ballots counted, and relayed by the Israeli media, the parties united behind the centrist Gadi Eisenkot have 47 seats. The right and the far right led by outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu currently have 54 seats. The Arab parties have recorded a strong surge, with 19 seats.
No bloc therefore reaches the 61 seats necessary to win an absolute majority in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. “This morning, we can say that Netanyahu lost, but that the opposition did not win,” commented to franceinfo historian Vincent Lemire, professor at Gustave-Eiffel University, for whom the “fog” dominates in the country.
The expert now evokes a “historic issue for Israel, which defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state”. "If democratic character prevails, then there is a clear majority against Netanyahu, an anti-Netanyahu government could be formed this afternoon. If Jewish character prevails, and Palestinian Arab MPs are excluded, then the country is ungovernable and Netanyahu has not lost yet." If all specialists remain cautious, while the figures continue to evolve, several scenarios are emerging. Franceinfo presents them to you.
A coalition government
After the official proclamation of the results by Thursday evening or Friday morning, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will task the candidate judged best placed to bring together at least 61 deputies to form a government. Negotiations, generally long and arduous, will then begin. At the end of the previous election in 2022, it took Benyamin Netanyahu almost two months to build a coalition.
If the Likud, the Prime Minister's party, is once again the party with the most seats, it seems difficult for the head of the outgoing government to find support beyond his far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies. “We must put in place a strong right-wing government,” repeated Benjamin Netanyahu after the publication of the first results, calling on “the Jewish and Zionist majority to pull themselves together and unite.” “Netanyahu can try to look elsewhere, in fragments of the coalition against him,” said Jean-Paul Chagnollaud, professor emeritus of universities. “If it’s a matter of a few seats, it’s possible on a piecemeal basis, he’s a very skilled manoeuvrer,” said the honorary president of the Mediterranean Middle East Research and Studies Institute to franceinfo.
In opposition, Gadi Eisenkot can try to rely on defections in the Prime Minister's camp. Another possibility: get closer to Arab parties. The Times of Israel newspaper reports that Mansour Abbas, head of Raam, "said he was willing to join a government led by Eisenkot, while specifying that it was first necessary to ensure that such a coalition was viable." His list won six seats, according to the latest estimates.
“Most of the members of Gadi Eisenkot’s coalition did not [want] to hear about” such an alliance, recalls Vincent Lemire. However, sources within the opposition already suggested, Wednesday morning, that they were ready to make "painful compromises" to form a government, according to The Jerusalem Post. The leader of the Israeli left, Yaïr Golan, has also called on the opposition to ally with the Arab parties: “We must no longer accept Netanyahu's racist division between Jewish voices and Arab voices,” he wrote on X on Wednesday morning.
“A potential coalition around Eisenkot is full of uncertainties and contradictions,” nevertheless analyzes Jean-Paul Chagnollaud. "A coalition around Netanyahu has its contradictions, but they are fewer, it is more homogeneous. Netanyahu's supporters remain linked by nationalist identity and religious values."
A minority with occasional support
If no bloc manages to bring together 61 seats, a minority government can be formed by relying on the occasional support of certain deputies, text by text, during debates in the Knesset. In this scenario, eyes are once again turned towards the Israeli Arab groups. In addition to Raam, the Joint List, which has 13 seats according to the latest results, has offered to provide a "safety net" to any coalition that would remove Benjamin Netanyahu from power.
However, a large part of the Jewish electorate is opposed to any form of alliance with Israeli Arabs. Benyamin Netanyahu has also focused his campaign on possible cooperation between the Gadi Eisenkot bloc and the Arab parties, which he presents as the alliance of the "left and the Muslim Brotherhood" threatening the survival of the State of Israel.
A government of national unity
Despite the extreme polarization of the political spectrum in Israel, the union of so-called "Zionist" parties, excluding Arab and ultra-Orthodox groups, is regularly mentioned by commentators. According to a poll published in mid-October, 55% of those questioned would prefer a government of national unity to new elections if the vote did not produce a clear majority.
This scenario has a recent precedent: in 2020, Benjamin Netanyahu and the centrist Benny Gantz had, despite their deep enmity, concluded a power-sharing agreement after three elections in less than a year, which provided for a rotation in the post of Prime Minister. But the team fell apart after a year, leading to a new vote.
Media reports have claimed in recent days that President Isaac Herzog was working behind the scenes to bring about a rapprochement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, to repeat the experience in the event of paralysis. But "the opposition parties have sworn not to collaborate with Netanyahu or with the ultra-Orthodox parties" during the campaign, recalls The Times of Israel. They made the vote a referendum against the outgoing Prime Minister.
New elections
If no candidate succeeds in forming a government, the Israeli population will have to return to the polls. This is “the most likely scenario”, believes Vincent Lemire. The country experienced four elections between April 2019 and March 2021, due to the inability of political forces to agree on a lasting common project. The candidate designated by the president has twenty-eight days to form a coalition, with a possible extension of two weeks. If this fails, other procedures may be initiated before a possible dissolution of the Knesset.
A new campaign risks prolonging political instability in a country still marked by the consequences of October 7 and by regional conflicts. Benjamin Netanyahu would remain interim Prime Minister. "This poses immense problems for Israel and the region. We would continue in an illiberal system in the country and, on the external level, in the refusal of negotiation with the Lebanese, the Palestinians and the Iranians and the choice of war", comments Jean-Paul Chagnollaud.
