With around 97 percent of the vote counted, both Netanyahu’s Likud party and Gantz’s Blue and White were tipped to win 35 seats in Israel’s 120-member Knesset, or parliament.
But Netanyahu was the one with a clear path to forming a coalition, with his natural allies in the right-wing doing better overall, predicted to win 65 seats. To form a government he needs to cobble together a 61-seat majority in the Knesset…
Netanyahu had presented the election as a referendum on his leadership, and his beaming smile showed he believed he succeeded in winning a new mandate from his people, despite his legal challenges. The attorney general in February recommended that the prime minister be indicted in three corruption cases, including on bribery, corruption and breach-of-trust charges, pending a hearing.
If he remains in power, Netanyahu is in a much stronger position to fight the charges and draw out the legal process, analysts say. If he forms a new government and survives until July, he will make history, becoming the country’s longest-serving prime minister, outstripping Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion.
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