With the publication of the final election results Thursday night, the scale of the anti-Netanyahu political parties’ defeat was thrown into sharp relief, as the final vote tallies showed just 30,293 votes separating the opposing political camps.

Although this gap represents less than one Knesset seat based on the total number of valid votes cast in the election, the incoming far-right and racist coalition will have a decisive four-seat majority, with 64 of the 120 seats in the new Knesset. According to the final results Hadash-Ta’al joint list won 5 seats.

The eight parties of what might be termed the “anti-Netanyahu bloc” – comprising the outgoing coalition parties, together with Hadash-Ta’al and Arab Balad party — attained near-parity, with 2,330,464 votes. This figure includes 288,789 votes cast for the Zionist left-wing Meretz and Balad parties, which both failed to cross the electoral threshold.

Hadash-Ta’al voter in Tel-Aviv, election day, November 1, 2022 (Photo: Zo Haderech)

 

Meretz received a total of 150,696 votes, representing 3.16% of the vote, and was just 4,124 votes shy of what it needed to cross the electoral threshold and enter the Knesset. Balad garnered 138,093 votes, representing some 2.9% of the total vote. These 288,789 votes amount to more than seven Knesset seats in a raw calculation of the number of votes which constitute one mandate, based on the total number of valid votes cast.  Balad, which ran on a joint list with Hadash and Ta’al in the previous five elections, pulled out of a similar arrangement just one hour before the deadline for submitting party electoral lists to the Central Elections Committee on September 15.

MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash) says that the new political reality in the wake of the election should be “frightening for everyone,” and that a period of soul-searching is necessary. “We are facing a political reality that should be frightening for everyone,” says the lawmaker. “It is a reality in which we have a right wing, and not just the usual ‘classic’ right that we know, but a right wing willing to use violence, wild incitement and deep racism. This reality should be a warning point for everyone,” she tells the Ynet news site.

“Whoever talks about [racist MK Itamar] Ben Gvir possibly having become more moderate, is trying to bury their head in the sand and not confront reality,” she says. “There must be a soul-searching and we must seriously examine the results and their political consequences,” she added.

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=30666