Israel elections deal a major setback to Netanyahu

JERUSALEM — Israeli voters dealt a stunning political rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving parliamentary elections in a virtual tie between the right and center-left and denying him the mandate he sought to pursue hawkish policies toward Palestinian peace talks, Iran’s nuclear program and construction of West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu was still regarded as the most likely candidate to form a new government after Tuesday’s voting because there are few other credible figures. But the disappointing performance will require him to reach out to the center in order to form a governing coalition.

With all but votes from prisoners, military voters and some government workers counted early Wednesday, Israel’s conservative and religious parties had won 60 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, the same number won by centrist and left-wing parties, who were led by a surprisingly strong performance from a political newcomer, Yair Lapid.

Though the final tally could change slightly, the close race all but ensures a period of turmoil before a new government emerges, and catapults Lapid and his recently formed centrist party, Yesh Atid (“There Is a Future”), into the forefront of Israeli politics. The party formed by the charismatic former TV broadcaster won 19 seats, the second-highest number of any party.

Amid a stronger-than-expected voter turnout of 67% — up from 65% in 2009 — the conservative bloc fell five seats short of the 65 seats it amassed four years ago, while the center-left parties picked up five.

The right was led by a joint slate between Netanyahu’s Likud Party and former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu, which won 31 seats in the 120-member Knesset. That’s far less than the combined 42 seats the two parties won four years ago when they ran separately. Based on the ratio determined in the shared slate, the results translate into about 20 seats for Likud and 11 for Yisrael Beiteinu.

Netanyahu held a slim lead as returns began to pour in Tuesday night. As the results were still being tallied, he declared victory early Wednesday and vowed to seek a broad coalition.

“I believe that the election results are an opportunity to make changes that the citizens are hoping for and that will serve all of Israel’s citizens,” he told supporters. “I intend to lead these changes, and to this end we must form as wide a coalition as possible.”

That last part, at least, will prove true for whomever forms the next government.

Even before the tally slipped into a tie, however, Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich called the results a “no-confidence vote” for the prime minister, saying, “The public has said a clear ‘no’ to Netanyahu’s policy.” She also vowed to fight to replace Netanyahu in the coming days.

Her left-leaning party received 15 seats, but it was eclipsed by the surprise performance of Lapid’s party, which won nearly twice as many seats as polls had predicted.

The results signal a slowdown in the rightward shift of the Israeli electorate in recent years. The conservatism has been attributed to growing pessimism by many Israelis about peace talks and by the belief that Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. Such sentiments spread after the Palestinian uprising a decade ago, when hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed in suicide bombings.

Netanyahu’s tough stance toward Palestinians and expansion of Jewish settlements on land claimed by Palestinians has tapped into such sentiments.

But critics, including centrist leaders like Lapid, say Netanyahu’s policies have isolated Israel internationally and squandered a chance to reach a peace deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has been praised as a moderate Palestinian leader who disavows violence, but he has refused to resume peace talks as long as Israel continues to build settlements on land it seized during the 1967 Middle East War.

Lapid, 49, appealed to middle-class, secular moderates, focusing his campaign on a promise to end the draft exemption that allows ultra-Orthodox young people to avoid military service and to slash government subsidies to West Bank settlers.

He also supports resuming Palestinian peace talks and opposes attacking Iran’s nuclear program without American cooperation.

Though center-left leaders were pressuring Lapid to boycott a new Netanyahu government, he signaled willingness — at least when it still appeared Netanyahu would win — to join if his programs are implemented.

“What is good for Israel is not in the possession of the right and nor is it in the possession of the left,” he said. “It lies in the possibility of creating here a real and decent center that listens to the other side, that knows how to engage in dialogue, that remembers that we are here together.”

Netanyahu had been expected to reach out to Lapid in an effort to ensure the stability of his coalition and reduce his dependency on far-right and religious parties, such as the ultra-Orthodox Shas. The nature of a governing coalition, however, was thrown into question by the election results.

In theory, adding additional partners would make it more difficult for any single party to threaten to bring down the coalition by withdrawing, although it increases the chances of internal ideological battles.

Shas, which won 11 seats, is staunchly opposed to drafting religious students into the military, a likely bone of contention in any coalition that includes Lapid.

Another potential coalition partner is Jewish Home, a revamped religious nationalist party that opposes Palestinian statehood and wants to annex parts of the West Bank into Israel.

Jewish Home, led by former high-tech entrepreneur and onetime Netanyahu aide Naftali Bennett, won 11 seats, up from three in 2009, and is expected to try to pull Netanyahu further toward the right.

The inclusion of Lapid would bring the government to the center, experts said.

“He will have a moderating influence on Netanyahu’s policies,” said political analyst Yehuda Ben-Meir of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.

Some voters said they had voted for Lapid for exactly that reason.

“I want to see a centrist coalition and I want him there to give it more bargaining power against the religious parties,’” said office worker Shoshi Shaked, 60, as she voted Tuesday morning in Mevaseret Zion, a Jerusalem suburb.

The centrist Kadima party, which won the highest number of votes in 2009 with 28 seats, won just two seats, a harsh setback for a party that once led the nation under former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

Meanwhile, Kadima’s former chairwoman, Tzipi Livni, 54, who was ousted as its leader in 2012, won six seats under her newly formed Movement party. The left-wing Meretz party doubled its seats, from three to six.

A variety of other small parties on the right and left also won a handful. Arab parties won 12 seats.

Though settlements and peace talks were among the most debated campaign issues, many voters said they were more concerned about pocketbook issues, such as rising food and housing prices. The threat of Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program, which Netanyahu had previously described as the gravest threat facing Israel, did not play a large role in the campaign. Nor did Israel’s swelling $10-billion budget deficit, which is likely to be the first crisis faced by the next government.

Now the election process shifts from public polling booths to backroom negotiations as parties seeking to join Netanyahu’s government try to wrest the most they can in terms of coveted ministry jobs or assurances that their political programs will be implemented.

A new coalition government is expected to take several weeks to prepare.

The last time an Israeli election was this close was in 1984, when the left and right, represented by Labor Party leader Shimon Peres and Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir, agreed to share the prime minister’s job in rotating shifts.

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Times Jerusalem bureau news assistant Batsheva Sobelman in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.