Middle East

Israeli party leaders try to form a ruling coalition

Article published on the 2009-02-11 Latest update 2009-02-11 15:17 TU

Tzipi Livni (L) in Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu (C) in Tel Aviv, and Avigdor Lieberman (R) in Jerusalem, at their party headquarters 11 February 2009
(Photos: Reuters / Layout: RFI)

Within hours of polls in Israel's general election closing Tuesday, both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held victory rallies. With almost all the ballots counted, Livni’s centrist Kadima has emerged with 28 seats, one more than Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party. But the President appoints the Prime Minister from the party which is able to form a coalition, so the country is looking at a lot of negotiations before a winner is confirmed.

"With God's help, I will lead the next government," Netanyahu told a cheering crowd of Likud supporters early Wednesday. An hour later, Livni told her supporters that "the people have spoken, and they have chosen Kadima".

Kadima beat Likud, which was leading in opinion polls leading up to the elections, though Likud more than doubled its seats, to 27 up from the 12 it won in 2006.

But since neither won an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset, the race is on to build coalitions.

“At least three parties will have to combine in a coalition, and very probably many more,” correspondent Peretz Kidron explained. “There are many arithmetical possibilities. The question is who decides to go with whom. And the very key figure in these negotiations is going to be Avigdor Lieberman of the very far-right Ysrael Beitenu party.”

Ysrael Beitenu came in third, with 15 seats, the ultra-Orthodox Shas won 11, the religious United Torah Judaism won five and two far-right settler parties, Jewish Home and National Union, won seven seats. These parties were bolstered by the three-week war with Gaza, and growing concerns about security.

If Netanyahu can bring Likud together with the right-wing and religious groups, he would have a total of 64 seats.

But nothing is decided.

“Another possibility is that the so-called big parties will get together and shut out the smaller ones, and form a three-party coalition, of Tzipi Livni’s Kadima, the opposition Likud party, and the Labour Party, could together put up a coalition,” said Kidrom.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s Labour, which dominated Israeli politics for decades, lost six seats and came in with a historic low of 13, and the left-wing Meretz won three seats. The remaining 11 seats held by Arab parties are unlikely to join any coalition.

“One of the most important questions is the portfolio that each party gets,” said Kidron. But it isn’t just political wrangling.

“There are issues of ideology,” he added. “There’s talk of peace negotiations with the Palestinians … a party like [Ysrael Beitenu], if they entered the government, they are very anti-religious.”

But nothing can be started before Thursday, when a final count is due. Almost 60 per cent of eligible voters turned out, but the results do not include thousands of soldiers’ votes, or the ballots from overseas.

“That could actually strengthen the trend to the right,” said Kidrom.

Once the votes are counted, President Shimon Peres will meet with party leaders, and then he has a week to decide who will get to try to form a government. That person will have 28 days to put together a coalition: weeks wrangling that could hamper peace talks with Palestinian leaders.

On Tuesday, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s aides said he will restart talks with Israel only if the government commits to a freeze of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

"We now have clear conditions for whomever heads the Israeli government," said Abbas adviser Rafiq Husseini. "The conditions begin with the halt of settlement activities immediately... for negotiations to start again."

Netanyahu wants to expand settlements, and construction increased under the outgoing Kadima-led government.