Eisenkot's Yashar Trails Likud as Israel Faces Post-Election Stalemate

Early counts from Tuesday's parliamentary election indicate that neither the right-wing bloc nor the center-left opposition can secure the 61 seats required to form a government.

Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party is on pace for 28 seats, leaving his alliance of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties short of the governing threshold. Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party appears to be the second-largest force with approximately 22 seats. The broader change bloc surrounding Eisenkot is projected at roughly 47 seats. Arab parties are tracking for at least 17 seats combined, a number that makes them a decisive factor in coalition building despite both main camps vowing to exclude them during the campaign.

Analysts have identified three primary paths for the next administration. The first option involves a coalition of the change bloc and Arab parties. While every change bloc party except the Democrats pledged to avoid such an alliance, Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas is offering cooperation. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, noted that this arrangement is mathematically viable but politically risky because it breaks campaign promises. He warned that the public is deeply unprepared for a government that includes an Islamist party, a sentiment reinforced by the drop in tolerance following the October 2023 attacks.

A variant of this path would see a minority government led by Yashar, B'Yachad, Yisrael Beiteinu, and the Democrats, supported externally by Arab factions to reach 65 seats. Avigdor Lieberman has rejected this model, though Bar-Ilan University professor Jonathan Rynhold suggested Lieberman might accept if he were the prime minister. The second scenario is a unity government where Netanyahu retains his full bloc and co-opts one change bloc party. Plesner believes this is a serious possibility but notes that change bloc voters who wanted a replacement for Netanyahu may feel betrayed by a centrist-leaning result that still includes far-right or ultra-Orthodox members.

The third option is a repeat election. Eisenkot called a new vote a mistake given that 77.7% of citizens participated, the highest turnout since 1999. However, Plesner argued that a second election could benefit Netanyahu, who would remain interim prime minister during the interim. Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said entrenched ideological camps make a new round of voting plausible. Plesner estimated that the process of determining the next prime minister could take weeks or perhaps months.

Formal consultations for parties to recommend a candidate to President Isaac Herzog are scheduled to begin next week.