This Tuesday, November 1, Israelis were called to the polls. These were the fifth legislative elections in the country, in three and a half years.
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© RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP
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Lhe Likud of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived first in the legislative elections on Tuesday (November 1st), on the threshold of a majority with his allies from the religious parties and the far right to form a government, according to reports. exit polls. According to these polls carried out by three major Israeli channels, Netanyahu’s right-wing party is credited with 30 to 31 seats, out of the 120 in Parliament, ahead of outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, which would win between 22 and 24 seats. With its allies, the Likud is on the threshold of a majority set at 61 seats.
The far-right alliance of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir came in third place with 14 seats, neck and neck with Benny Gantz’s center-right formation (from 11 to 13 seats). Unlike previous polls, the Israeli Arab parties presented themselves in dispersed order under three lists: Raam (moderate Islamist), Hadash-Taal (secular) and Balad (nationalist). The Raam party of Mansour Abbas, which had – unheard of – supported the outgoing coalition of Yaïr Lapid, won five seats, according to the polls. The Hadash-Taal list won four, while Balad collected none.
“The majority of the population has proven that the right must be in power, the right is the majority in Israel,” said Yossef Wiezman, 22, a supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu nicknamed “Bibi” at a Likud rally where the crowd chanted in Hebrew “Bibi hozer” (“Bibi is coming back”). “What is happening today is unbelievable,” argued Ran Karmi Buzaglo, a supporter of Itamar Ben Gvir, saying he wanted the formation of a “real right-wing government” led by Netanyahu and including Israel. far right.
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On the left, the Labor Party (Avoda) is credited with five to six seats while the Meretz formation has four to five. The ultra-Orthodox parties, allies of Benjamin Netanyahu, have 10 seats for Shas (Sephardic) and seven for United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi), according to these polls.
These legislative elections were the fifth in three and a half years in Israel, a politically divided country which is struggling to give birth to coalitions or to maintain them. At 7 p.m. Paris time, the turnout stood at 66.3%, or 5.4% more than in the last legislative elections in March 2021. It is also the highest rate at the same time. since 1999, according to the electoral commission.
Faced with the “right-wing bloc” of Benjamin Netanyahu, Yaïr Lapid, 58, leader of the Yesh Atid party (“There is a future”) and leader of a coalition unique in the history of Israel, because bringing together left, center, right and an Arab party, tried to convince that the course given in recent months should be maintained. His “coalition of change” had ousted Benjamin Netanyahu from power in June 2021 before losing his parliamentary majority a year later, precipitating this fifth ballot since the spring of 2019.
This election took place in a climate of renewed violence in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, where the Israeli forces have multiplied their operations in recent months in the wake of deadly anti-Israeli attacks. Israeli operations have killed more than 120 Palestinians, the heaviest toll in seven years.
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The results of the legislative elections in Israel bear witness to a “rise of extremism and racism” in Israeli society, reacted Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh. “The advance of far-right religious parties in Israeli elections… bears witness to the rise of extremism and racism in Israeli society and from which our people have suffered for years,” Mohammed Shtayyeh said in a statement. from Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority.