With more than 40% of ballot boxes reported by the Central Elections Committee on Wednesday morning, one thing looks settled. No camp is heading for 61 seats. What’s still moving is the size of the Netanyahu bloc’s shortfall, and how much weight the Arab parties end up carrying in the next Knesset.
Turnout reached 77.7%, the highest in an Israeli election since 1999. At the point where roughly 37% of valid votes (about 2.1 million ballots) had been counted, the official tally translated into these seats:
Coalition parties, 57 seats. Likud 28, United Torah Judaism 8, Shas 7, Otzma Yehudit 7, Religious Zionism and Zehut 7.
Opposition parties, 47 seats. Yashar under Gadi Eisenkot 21, Naftali Bennett’s Together 11, Yisrael Beiteinu 8, The Democrats 7.
Arab parties, 16 seats. Joint List 12, Ra’am 4.
Those figures will change.
The count has been drifting one way
When a fifth of the vote was in, the coalition parties stood at 63. By the 30% mark they were down to 59, and by 37% to 42% they had slipped to 57. That steady slide comes from the order in which votes arrive. Smaller towns, peripheral communities and Haredi cities such as Bnei Brak tend to finish counting early. Large cities report later, and so do many Arab localities with big polling stations. Early Tel Aviv returns gave the Eisenkot-led camp about 70% of the vote, and most of the city was still outstanding.
The double-envelope ballots come last. These are the votes of soldiers, prisoners, hospital patients and diplomatic staff, around 650,000 of them by estimate, and they are counted at the Knesset over Wednesday and Thursday. Soldiers have leaned right in previous elections. Even so, the effect on the final map has usually been limited to one or two seats.
Election-night exit polls ran lower for the coalition than the raw count does now. Kan, Channel 12 and Channel 13 each had the bloc at 50 to 52 seats in their late updates. i24 projected 55, and Channel 14 stood apart with 60.
Where the final numbers are likely to land
Carrying the current trend through the uncounted boxes, and weighing it against the main exit polls, the final allocation looks most likely to fall in these ranges:
Coalition parties, 53 to 55 seats.
Opposition parties, 49 to 51 seats.
Arab parties, 16 to 17 seats.
Likud is on course to remain the largest faction with about 26 or 27 seats, with Yashar close to 21. The Joint List looks set for its strongest result in years.
The electoral threshold of 3.25% is the main thing that could still shake this up. Ra’am is polling around 3.8% of counted votes, a narrow cushion. A drop below the line would erase its four seats and spread them across the other lists, with the coalition parties picking up part of them. The Reservists and Economic Party, led by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelikha, has about 2.7% and is on track to miss the threshold, taking those votes out of the opposition’s total.
A hard road to a government
On these numbers Benjamin Netanyahu would be six to eight seats short of a majority, and no opposition party has said it would join him. Eisenkot’s side has even further to go without relying on Arab parties. Ra’am joined a governing coalition once before, in 2021. The Joint List never has.
That points to drawn-out consultations at the President’s residence, heavy courting of the smaller factions, and open discussion of a fifth election in seven years.
The official results must be published in the government gazette by November 4. The seat count can keep shifting until then.