Israelis voted on Monday in an unprecedented third parliamentary elections in less than a year to break the deadlock on government formation, with the country’s longest serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting for his political survival amid indictments on graft charges.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee (CEC) said that 27.6 per cent of registered voters had cast their ballots by noon, the highest figures for this hour since the 1999 elections when incumbent Prime Minister Netanyahu lost to Ehud Barak in direct elections for premiership.
Neither Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing Likud party, nor his main challenger, Benny Gantz — leader of the Blue and White alliance — were able to put together majority coalitions following the last two elections.
The final opinion polls suggested the latest round is too close to call.
Some 10,631 polling stations opened at 7 AM Israel time to enable about 6,45 miliion eligible voters to cast their ballots. There were 14 special polling stations for Israelis quarantined due to possible exposure to coronavirus.
President Reuven Rivlin expressed a feeling of “deep shame” while voting.
“This is normally a festive day, but the truth is that I don’t feel like celebrating. I only feel a sense of deep shame when I face you, my fellow citizens,” Rivlin said after casting his vote at the Yefe Nof school in Jerusalem.
“We just don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve another awful and grubby election campaign like the one that ends today and we don’t deserve this never-ending instability. We deserve a government that works for us,” the Israeli President said.