Voting Closes in Israel, Exit Polls Show No Clear Winner

Foreign Affairs State of the Union: Both Netanyahu's coalition and the opposition bloc fell short of a majority. Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images The polls closed in Israel’s general election Tuesday evening, following the highest turnout in decades. Although official results won’t be known for several days, exit poll results released just after voting ended suggest that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opponents secured control of the Knesset, Israel’s legislature. Sixty-one seats are needed for a majority; according to the early polls, the anti-Netanyahu bloc—which encompasses four separate political groupings, including the prominent opposition figure Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party—won 52 seats, while Netanyahu’s coalition—which includes his Likud party, as well as four smaller parties—won 50. The two largest Arab parties, which oppose Netanyahu but are often excluded from coalitions by Jewish parties, together won 18 seats. Once the results of the election are finalized, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will task whichever lawmaker he deems most suitable with forming a government (Netanyahu and Eisenkot are widely seen as the most viable candidates). If the early polls are accurate, several outcomes are possible, including a minority government, a coalition between the anti-Netanyahu parties and the Arab parties, a unity coalition encompassing both the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs (or some elements thereof), or, if forming a government proves impossible, another election.