The vote count in this week’s Israeli national elections is now 99 percent complete, allowing for a sense of which party obtained what number of seats. Unfortunately for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the results will make it extremely difficult for him to form a coalition, putting his long-running tenure in jeopardy. As of this writing, Netanyahu is planning to skip the U.N. General Assembly meeting next week to focus instead on building a government.
Does he have a chance? Let’s take a look at the math. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has 120 seats to be divided up among the various political parties. No single party has ever obtained a majority of 61 or more seats, so every Israeli government has been a coalition of parties. After elections, parties must recommend their preferred prime minister to Israel’s president (currently Reuven Rivlin). The president is then responsible for deciding which party to task with forming a coalition. Once he makes his choice, the head of that party is given six weeks to draft an agreement with other parties to form a government.
This time around, it is unclear which party will be able to make a coalition, as almost every possible combination of like-minded parties cannot reach a 61-seat majority. To see why, let’s break down the results by party.
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See Also:
(1) Party-list proportional representation
