Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party regained its position as the largest political party in Israeli politics in yesterday’s election, but again failed to amass enough votes for a governing majority.
Likud has a number of allies for a potential government, but with all of those allies counted their representation reaches a total of 58 seats, three short of the majority required to form a new administration.
This is the same amount of seats they controlled prior to the latest election. Their direct vote total has increased, jumping Likud to representing 36 seats, but some of their smaller affiliated parties lost seats; the result was no net change.
Benny Gantz’ Kahool Levan (Blue and White) party also gained one seat, but failed to reach a governing majority with all of its allies counted.
Blue and White representative Meirav Cohen accused Likud members of offering her a ministerial position if she would switch parties, calling out the notion as fundamentally dishonorable on social media.
The Joint List, a group of affiliated small arab parties, have as yet refused to align with either Likud or Blue & White.
The final, but as yet unofficial, totals for the larger parties are:
Likud: 36 seats (+4); Blue and White: 33 seats; Joint List: 15 seats (+2); Shas: 9 seats; UTJ: 7 seats; Labor-Gersher-Meretz: 7 seats (-3); Yisrael Beytenu: 7 seats (-1); Yamina: 6 seats (-1).
