The polls in the early parliamentary elections in Israel have just closed. According to preliminary data, the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Zionist Union of Yitzhak Herzog won 27 Knesset seats each.
According to the CEC, at 21:00 (MSK) voter turnout reached 65.7%. Almost 5.9 million Israelis are eligible to vote.
According to the majority of forecasts, this election should be the last for the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, an expert of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, Peter Stegniy, and the President of the Institute of the Middle East, Yevgeny Satanovskiy, do not agree with such assessments, saying that the current head of government and his party have a sufficient safety margin to win again.
Peter Stegniy told Vestnik Kavkaza that the election results can be quite surprising. "This is a tense moment. Today the number of regional issues which must be addressed has largely increased. Not even increased two- or three-fold, therefore these elections will be very important. I think we can hardly predict the outcome," the expert said, adding that Benjamin Netanyahu is still the leader and he most likely will retain his position.
"First of all, people of different political views were surely impressed by Netanyahu's speech at the meeting of the US Senate. Everyone knows what to expect from the current prime minister. He is able to push his ideas, and this attracts people. Secondly, liberal associations are not very consistent now. In particular, strange things have happened with the 'Yisrael Beiteinu' faction, which was at the center of a corruption scandal at the beginning of the campaign," Stegniy summed up.
According to the President of the Institute of the Middle East, Yevgeny Satanovskiy, forecasting is complicated by the fact that up until the last moment it was not clear for whom from 30% to 40% of voters will vote. "Either they are still undecided or do not know whether to come to the polls, or they exactly know that they would not vote for the last party, as it has disappointed them," he said, adding that such a colossal percentage of undecided voters makes any predictions impossible."Everything will depend on how many Israelis of this category will go to the polling stations. Because we have a total of 5 million 800 thousand voters. If 2 million of those will not come, this is one situation, but if none of them will come it is completely different. There is a mysterious situation with the Eastern Sephardic Shas party. The party was split, its religious leader is dead. How will they vote? It is not clear," the expert said."More than half of the votes should go to the right and center-right block, judging by the mood of the masses, but we do not know how many voters will choose left and center-left blocks. The left-wing press says that it will probably have more than the right block have, asserting as well that the Russian party, Lieberman's party, will not pass the electoral threshold, and will take 4 seats at a scratch. But all the polls of scientists say that it will not be less than 9 seats. The way that the coalition will develop depends on it, as well as the Knesset and the government's final form," Satanovskiy said.According to him, a large part of society tends to be attracted to the center-right block because the Israelis are tired of socialism. "There are still people who vote for the Left Socialist parties of inertia, because their parents left them an apartment, and their grandmothers were members of the Mapai party. But in general, of course, private ownership and privatization change habits in many ways. In addition, the peace process, or should I call it rather the sluggish terrorist war, was unleashed because of the fact that Shimon Peres decided to negotiate with Arafat. The leftists are to blame. They have lost the trust of the electorate," Satanovskiy concluded.
According to the President of the Institute of the Middle East, Yevgeny Satanovskiy, forecasting is complicated by the fact that up until the last moment it was not clear for whom from 30% to 40% of voters will vote. "Either they are still undecided or do not know whether to come to the polls, or they exactly know that they would not vote for the last party, as it has disappointed them," he said, adding that such a colossal percentage of undecided voters makes any predictions impossible.
"Everything will depend on how many Israelis of this category will go to the polling stations. Because we have a total of 5 million 800 thousand voters. If 2 million of those will not come, this is one situation, but if none of them will come it is completely different. There is a mysterious situation with the Eastern Sephardic Shas party. The party was split, its religious leader is dead. How will they vote? It is not clear," the expert said.
"More than half of the votes should go to the right and center-right block, judging by the mood of the masses, but we do not know how many voters will choose left and center-left blocks. The left-wing press says that it will probably have more than the right block have, asserting as well that the Russian party, Lieberman's party, will not pass the electoral threshold, and will take 4 seats at a scratch. But all the polls of scientists say that it will not be less than 9 seats. The way that the coalition will develop depends on it, as well as the Knesset and the government's final form," Satanovskiy said.
According to him, a large part of society tends to be attracted to the center-right block because the Israelis are tired of socialism. "There are still people who vote for the Left Socialist parties of inertia, because their parents left them an apartment, and their grandmothers were members of the Mapai party. But in general, of course, private ownership and privatization change habits in many ways. In addition, the peace process, or should I call it rather the sluggish terrorist war, was unleashed because of the fact that Shimon Peres decided to negotiate with Arafat. The leftists are to blame. They have lost the trust of the electorate," Satanovskiy concluded.
