Bizarre. I haven’t seen a single report of actual VOTES. Instead it’s non-stop coverage of exit polls. And the actual numbers in Israel are always confusing. there are so many new parties constantly popping up while old parties sink into oblivion. Labour and its leftist allies are still playing second fiddle to the Likud coalition.
By the way, how do parties that gain a majority of votes in a country represent the “far right”, while a combination of other parties gets less than 50% and is labelled “centre-left”?
They’re saying that 99.8% of votes have been counted and it stands 60-60.
However the official tally will be released Thursday morning.
Netanyahu will have to put together a coalition of 61 seats. If he can’t than the election will have to be held again.
And yes, it’s ridiculous that the press defines this as a battle between the “far right” and “center left”. Of course the media also portrays our politics that way, they just don’t often use terms like that so openly.
With 99.8% of the vote in, Netanyahu’s base(the Israeli Right and far right and the Orthodox Religious parties) have 60 out of the 120 votes. The Left and Moderate parties have 48 votes. The Arab parties have 12 votes. It’s kind of a mess:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/st/inter/Global/center/night_center_eng.htm