Israel in an unprecedented electoral loop
The phenomenon is unprecedented in the nearly 75-year history of the modern Jewish state and local analysts do not rule out that it will continue indefinitely if this week's elections do not lead to the formation of new parliamentary majorities either.
Three scenarios are possible, according to all forecasts.
The first two are the formation of coalitions around or against the current right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The third is that neither of these two possibilities will come to fruition and new elections will be called, the fifth in less than two and a half years.
"There is no guarantee that elections will not have to be called again in September," says Yohanan Plesner, a former member of the centre-left Kadima party and current analyst at the political think tank Israel Democracy Institute.
In an online meeting with European journalists, Plesner recalled that "the transfer of votes" is very low, practically nil, between the four main groups of parties in Israeli politics: the right, the left, the religious and the Arabs.
Despite Netanyahu's diplomatic achievements - including Washington's recognition of divided Jerusalem as Israel's capital, including the occupied part of the city, and the normalisation of relations with some Gulf Arab countries - Plesner believes the electorate will vote internally.
He believes that the issues that will drive the vote will be "recovery from the pandemic and upholding the rule of law".
Also "the relationship between religion and state" - always controversial due to Israel's theocratic origins - and "security", an aspect of local politics that is no less recurrent due to the tension with Iran, Tel Aviv's bête noire and the region's Islamic power, and the conflict with the Palestinians.
And on these issues the positions of the four party groups are well defined if not opposed, or differ little.
In addition to this factor, Plesner considers that "Netanyahu's judicial situation" - on trial for corruption in cases of fraud, bribery and breach of trust, charges that could lead to up to ten years in prison - does not help to cement majorities either.
Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party is the favourite but polls give it only 31 out of 120 seats, meaning it would need at least another 30 to lead a governing coalition.
The Likud already won 36 seats in the last election, in March 2020, but its national unity executive with Benny Gantz's centre-right Blue and White party, which won 33, was short-lived due to Netanyahu's breaking of the government agreement.
That agreement provided for a rotating presidency. Netanyahu would be head of the cabinet for 18 months, and Gantz for the next 18.
But Netanyahu's demand before the handover that Gantz govern with his own budget shattered the pact.
The break-up of the coalition government nevertheless allows Netanyahu to continue as prime minister on an interim basis.For diplomat Alon Pinkas, former Israeli consul in New York, the manoeuvre reflects the acting prime minister's strategy of retaining political power at all costs in order to be more accountable to the judiciary.
"All Netanyahu wants is to stay in government. He believes he is less vulnerable and can better defend himself in court," said Pinkas, contacted by telephone by Efe and also a former political adviser to the late Labour president Shimon Peres.
"It wouldn't be bad for him if no new majorities were reached and elections were called again," the diplomat noted, explaining that in that case the acting prime minister could continue in office on an interim basis, at least for another six months.
The current electoral loop is not the only unprecedented phenomenon in the Jewish state, where, like Netanyahu, no prime minister has ever been in office for 15 years.
Netanyahu is also the first head of government to sit in the dock while in office; it remains to be seen whether he will manage to remain prime minister - albeit in office, as he is currently - when the courts rule. The verdict is expected to take years.
