Netanyahu and Eisenkot Both Claim Right to Govern After Tight Israeli Vote
After Israel's parliamentary election, the camps of Netanyahu and Eisenkot are almost evenly matched. Neither reaches the required majority of 61 of the 120 Knesset seats, yet both claim the right to form a government.
After Israel's parliamentary election, no clear winner is emerging. In various forecasts from different media outlets, the two political camps of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main challenger Gadi Eisenkot are more or less neck and neck. Neither camp reaches the required majority of 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.
Despite the narrow result, both sides claim the right to form the government. Netanyahu's Likud party is regarded in the reporting as the strongest force, and Netanyahu is celebrating himself as the election winner. Opposition leader Eisenkot, in turn, calls on the prime minister to step down and wants to form a government himself. The two camps thus face each other, each claiming a mandate from voters, although the distribution of seats gives neither side a clear majority.
For government formation, this means both sides will likely depend on coalition partners to reach the threshold of 61 seats. Which parties could join together for this and how long the negotiations will take is not stated in the available information. Developments surrounding the election continue to be closely followed in the reporting.
10
