JERUSALEM — Israel's parliamentary election ended Wednesday in a stunning deadlock between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line bloc and center-left rivals, forcing the badly weakened leader to scramble to cobble together a coalition of parties from both camps, despite dramatically different views on Mideast peacemaking and other polarizing issues.
Israeli media said that with 99.8 percent of votes
counted, each bloc had 60 of parliament’s 120 seats. Commentators said
Netanyahu, who called early elections three months ago expecting easy
victory, would be tapped to form the next government because the rival
camp drew 12 of its 60 seats from Arab parties who traditionally neither
are asked nor seek to join governing coalitions.
A startlingly
strong showing by a political newcomer, the centrist Yesh Atid (There is
a Future) party, turned pre-election forecasts on their heads and dealt
Netanyahu his surprise setback in Tuesday’s vote. Yesh Atid’s leader,
Yair Lapid, has said he would only join a government committed to
sweeping economic changes and a serious push to resume peace talks with
the Palestinians, which have languished throughout Netanyahu’s four-year
tenure.
The results were not official, and there was a slim chance of a slight shift in the final bloc breakdowns.
Addressing
his supporters early Wednesday, when an earlier vote count still gave
his bloc a one-seat parliamentary margin, Netanyahu vowed to form as
broad a coalition as possible. He said the next government would be
built on principles that include reforming the contentious system of
granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and the
“responsible” pursuit of a “genuine peace” with the Palestinians. He did
not elaborate, but the message seemed aimed at Lapid.
Netanyahu
called Lapid early Wednesday and offered to work together. “We have the
opportunity to do great things together,” Likud quoted the prime
minister as saying.
The prime minister’s goal of a broader
coalition will not be an easy one, and will force him to make some
difficult decisions. In an interview last week with The Associated
Press, Lapid said he would not be a “fig leaf” for a hard-line agenda on
peacemaking. A leading party member, Yaakov Peri, said Yesh Atid it
would not join unless the government pledges to begin drafting the
ultra-Orthodox into the military, lowers the country’s high cost of
living and returns to peace talks.
“We have red lines. We won’t cross those red lines, even if it will cost us sitting in the opposition,” Peri told Channel 2 TV.
That
stance could force Netanyahu to make overtures — perhaps far more
sweeping than he imagined — to get negotiations moving again.
Conversely,
a coalition joining parties with dramatically divergent views on
peacemaking, the economy and the military draft could easily be headed
for gridlock — and perhaps a short life — at a time when Israel faces
mounting international isolation, growing economic problems, and
regional turbulence.
The vote tally gave Netanyahu’s Likud-Yisrael
Beitenu alliance 31 parliamentary seats, 11 fewer than the 42 it held
in the outgoing parliament and below the forecasts of recent polls. Yesh
Atid had been forecast to capture about a dozen seats but won 19.
Under
Israeli law, the party with the best chance of putting together a
coalition is given six weeks to do so, and Netanyahu is expected to be
handed the task. In the event he fails to form a government, another
party — presumably Lapid’s — would be asked to try.
