After years of gridlock, voter exasperation with the political parties has grown, but growing support for the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionist bloc has galvanized the campaign for both supporters and opponents of the group’s co-leader, Itamar Ben- Gvir. Election officials said turnout was 47.5 percent by 4 p.m., the highest at that stage in 23 years. It remains unclear how this early strong voter turnout will affect the results. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu, is on trial on corruption charges he denies, but his right-wing Likud party is still expected to finish as the largest in parliament. “It’s him or nothing,” a voter who gave his name as Tomer told Reuters outside a polling station in the coastal city of Bat Yam where copies of Netanyahu’s new autobiography were being sold. But final polls last week showed the right still short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, opening the prospect of protracted coalition wrangling and new elections. “There is a sense of desperation in all these elections,” said Hagit Cohen, a 46-year-old social worker from Tel Aviv who said she was voting for outgoing centrist Prime Minister Yair Lapid. Road safety and rising prices top the list of voters’ concerns in a campaign sparked by defectors from the unlikely governing coalition of right-wing, centrist and Arab parties formed after the last election. The campaign, which began weeks after a brief clash with the Islamic Jihad militant group in Gaza in August, has also taken place against a backdrop of rising violence in the occupied West Bank, with near-daily raids and clashes. “We need security in this country,” said Meir Banai, a 23-year-old Ben-Gvir voter from Bat Yam. [1/7] An Israeli votes on Israel’s general election day at a polling station in Rahat, Israel, November 1, 2022. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
“END THE DAY WITH A SMILE”
But the conflict has had little immediate impact on the campaign, which has been overshadowed by the outsized personality of Netanyahu, whose legal battles have fueled the impasse that has dogged Israel’s political system since he was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in 2019. Voting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu, after warning his supporters of a potentially high turnout for his opponents, said: “I told you I was a little worried, but God willing…we will end the day with a smile.” Ben-Gvir and fellow far-right leader Bezalel Smotrich have eaten away at Likud’s traditional hawkish base, and the once fringe Religious Zionism is now set to be the third largest party in parliament. Ben-Gvir – a former member of Kach, a group on Israeli and US terror watch lists – has moderated some previous positions, but the prospect of him joining a coalition risks worrying Washington. “If Ben-Gvir comes in it will be a disaster,” said Jaffa resident Amin Kurdi. After voting in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, Ben-Gvir boarded a helicopter from the southern city of Sderot to coastal Netanya, where he said Defense Minister Benny Gantz was campaigning hard in central Israel. “We’re now flying to Netanya to say it’s either a Gantz government or a fully right-wing government.” Lapid has campaigned on diplomatic breakthroughs with countries such as Turkey and Lebanon, as well as the strong performance of the Israeli economy recovering from the pandemic. Flanked by supporters outside a Tel Aviv polling station, Lapid said: “This election is between the future and the past.” Reporting by James Mackenzie, Dan Williams, Rami Ayyub, Emily Rose and Henriette Chacar. Editing by Andrew Heavens, William Maclean, Hugh Lawson and Nick Macfie Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
