The legislative camps in Israel are nearly even, according to estimates, with 51 seats going to the bloc close to centrist Gadi Eisenkot, as well as the right and far-right grouped around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Both are far from the 61 seats needed to have an absolute majority in the 120-member Knesset, and Eisenkot seems better positioned to attract new allies.
The following are the four main possible scenarios:
1. A coalition is formed
After the official proclamation of results, in the coming days, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will ask one of the candidates to form a government, the one he considers best positioned to bring together at least 61 deputies.
With this, negotiations begin, which can be arduous and lengthy.
The Israeli Arab parties, in particular Raam, have shown themselves open to working with Eisenkot's bloc, who kept his distance from them because he considered that they could affect him in the campaign.
For Netanyahu's bloc, there is no clear space to gain more seats, after some small right-wing parties failed to achieve the minimum vote to enter parliament.
It took Netanyahu 58 days to form his current government after the November 2022 elections.
2. A minority government
If no bloc reaches 61 seats, a minority government can be formed, relying on the specific support of certain deputies.
In this scenario, the two Israeli Arab lists emerge as possible arbiters of the situation.
Mansour Abbas' Raam party has said it is willing to work with Eisenkot's bloc, and the Unified List proposed providing a "safety net" to any coalition that ousts Netanyahu from power.
But during the campaign, the main figures of the opposition bloc were reluctant to ally themselves with the Israeli Arab parties due to the hostility of a large part of the electorate towards them.
Netanyahu knows this well and focused his campaign on possible cooperation between the Eisenkot bloc and the Arab parties, which he presents as the alliance of the "left and the Muslim Brotherhood" and as a threat to the State of Israel.
3. A government of national unity
This hypothesis seems fanciful, given the extreme political polarization in Israel. But the union of so-called "Zionist" parties, excluding Arab and ultra-religious formations, is regularly mentioned by analysts.
A poll published in mid-October indicated that 55% of those surveyed preferred a national unity government to new elections if no one obtained a clear majority.
This scenario has a recent precedent: in 2020, Netanyahu and the centrist Benny Gantz reached, despite their deep enmity, a power division agreement after three elections in less than a year, which provided for a rotation in the position of prime minister. That alliance dissolved after a year, so there was no rotation.
Some media have pointed out in recent days that President Herzog is maneuvering behind the scenes to bring Netanyahu and Eisenkot closer, seeking to repeat the experience in case of stalemate.
But this hypothesis would be met with strong rejection in both camps, especially in the opposition bloc, which turned the elections into a referendum on the prime minister.
4. Stagnation and new elections
If no candidate manages to form a government, Israel will have to return to the polls.
The country held four elections between April 2019 and March 2021 due to politicians' inability to forge a lasting coalition.
The candidate nominated by the president will, in principle, have 28 days to form a coalition with the possibility of a 14-day extension, although there are other ways to avoid immediately calling new elections.
