• Israel to vote for the third time in 12 months
  • Israel polls a week after the vote

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March 03, 2020 The counting of yesterday's political elections in Israel continues slowly. According to the Central Electoral Commission, 34.1 percent of the ballots have so far been counted. Based on these data, Likud is confirmed in first place with 28.7 per cent, followed by the centrists of Blu Bianco with 23.3 per cent. In third place is the anointed Arab List, with 12.4 percent of the votes. During the night, two television networks - Canale 12 and Canale 13 - published 'adjusted' exit-polls, elaborated with the inclusion of the real results from some key seats. Likud remains the first party with 37 seats out of 120, while Blu Bianco is now assigned 32-33 seats. The blockade of the right, loyal to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu - should get 59 seats: two less than the minimum necessary for the parliamentary majority.

The biggest victory of my life. "So Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu defined yesterday's vote in the speech to the party." The Israelis have trusted us - he added - because they know that we have brought them the best decade in history of Israel "." It was a great victory for the right, but first and foremost - he concluded - a victory for us Likud men ".



The turnout was very high, as had not been seen since 1999: other than frustrated and bored voters, the Israelis poured into the seats, more than by conviction, probably fed up with a country stuck in the impasse, with an interim government unable to take any major decision, including budgetary decisions, with consequences also on services and welfare. Voters were wooed almost one by one by Netanyahu and former chief of staff Gantz; the first engaged in the struggle for political survival (on March 17 the start of his trial for corruption, fraud and abuse of trust in three cases is set), the second that attempted for the third time to end the era of 'King Bibi', after more than 13 years of the Likud leader in power, of which the last ten uninterrupted.

The election campaign was marked by low blows, fake news, deceptive videos, the whole paraphernalia of a war with no holds barred, condemned by President Reuven Rivlin himself who stressed that the Israelis "do not deserve another terrible election campaign that expires in similar levels of dirt. " Both Netanyahu and Gantz had gone to vote early in the morning, urging compatriots to do the same and exercise "a democratic right"; as the day progressed, however, the 'desperate' appeals in which each one profiled defeat multiplied, to push his voters to the polls, the so-called 'gevalt' ('wolf, wolf') strategy used to sometimes also by allies of the same block. As did the defense minister, Naftali Bennett, who predicted Netanyahu's victory with 37 seats within hours of closing the seats to push the undecided towards her right-wing ultra-nationalist party, Yamina.