The shadow of a fifth election hangs over Israel

Israel, with an election hangover, still has no clear winning bloc. With 97% of the votes counted and a 67% turnout, the lowest since the 2013 elections, Netanyahu's bloc of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and the Religious Party would have won 59 seats along with Yamina, two short of a majority. 

Likud, the party of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has emerged as the country's largest party in the fourth election in less than two years, with 30 seats. Meanwhile, its main opponent, Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, and with most of the votes already counted, won 18 seats, making it the second largest political force in Israel. 

The anti-Netanyahu bloc, a motley group of left, right and centre factions, also fell just short of a majority. The big surprise comes from the Raam Party (United Arab List), which initially appeared not to pass the electoral threshold of 3.25%, but the current results give it five seats, while the Joint List six.

The Central Election Committee has announced that preliminary polling station results would be announced later in the day. But it is still necessary to wait for the Committee to start counting some 450,000 double envelopes, i.e. ballots of diplomats, military and coronavirus infected and quarantined citizens. So the results will not be final until Friday afternoon. 

These elections are marked by the entry into parliament of Religious Zionism, a strongly racist and anti-Arab Jewish supremacist group, which could hold the key to forming a government. Attention is also focused on what Naftali Bennett's radical right-wing Yamina party and the Islamist United Arab List party, headed by Mansour Abbas, will do, but neither has yet declared its support for either bloc.

Although the winner is still unpredictable, Netanyahu dared to ratify his victory on Twitter, writing "a gigantic victory".  But at 2:30 in the morning, and as a result of the changing situation, the prime minister encouraged the formation of "a stable right-wing government" and the "avoidance of a fifth election", in a speech that lasted only 10 minutes and had hardly any audience. 

Opposition leader Yair Lapid warned that "Netanyahu does not have 61 seats, but the bloc of change does", in a speech to activists from his Yesh Atid party. He also called on the parties of the anti-Netanyahu bloc and promised to coordinate their next steps together.

Israel is once again at a crossroads, where the formation of a government will be based on pacts with an amalgam of parties where, for now, no bloc has a clear majority. Netanyahu depends largely on his "natural partners", the ultra-Orthodox, as well as on the decision of his former partner, Bennett. The shadow of a fifth election is already looming over Israeli society, which is once again seeing the formation of a government as an obstacle course. 

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the results is the rise of the extreme right-wing Jewish Religious Zionist Party, which has made a strong entrance with six seats that are essential to forging a majority. The demographic growth of ultra-Orthodox and ultra-religious Jews has led to an increase in the presence of these parties in parliament, as opposed to the Arab vote, which continues to decline.