MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th April, 2019) Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has all the chances to stay in the office for a record fifth term despite being neck and neck with his main rival, ex-army chief Benny Gantz's Blue and White alliance, but cutting a coalition deal with the smaller parties may take a while due to contradictory demands from potential allies, experts told Sputnik.
With more than 97 percent of votes counted, Likud and Blue and White coalition are projected to get 35 seats each in the 120-strong Knesset.
Four parties with combined 35 seats � Ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, Kulanu, and the Union of Right-Wing Parties � had already announced their resolve to recommend Netanyahu to form a coalition. With projected 5 seats of Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu party, Likud may secure a 65-seat majority in the future parliament, but Liberman has said earlier that he had not yet decided whether to join Netanyahu's government or remain in opposition.
The election commission has yet to count the ballots cast by soldiers and diplomats.
Even though the final results of the elections are yet to come out, Netanyahu does seem to achieve his ambitious goal of securing the fifth term as prime minister that would make him Israel's longest-serving political leader, Abraham Bell, a professor of law at the law schools of Bar Ilan University and University of San Diego, told Sputnik.
"While the remaining votes will continue to be counted for another few days, the outcome of the elections is quite clear: Netanyahu has won a fifth term, and he will return to office with a coalition quite similar to that which he had before the elections," the expert said.
Dr. Ofer Kenig, a senior lecturer in Ashkelon Academic College and a research fellow in Israel Democracy Institute, expressed the same belief in his comments to Sputnik, adding that it was Netanyahu's best results in his political career.
"It is a solid victory. Actually, it is Netanyahu's biggest achievement in his history in terms of how many seats he managed to bring to Likud, it is the greatest result ever," Kenig said.
Moran Stern, a lecturer at Georgetown University's program for Jewish civilization, also told Sputnik that the electoral picture would hardly change in favor of Gantz's Blue and White alliance after the remaining 3 percent of ballots were counted.
"I do not see that happen because the votes coming from soldiers tend to be more to the right, so it might be even one more mandate for Likud," he said.
Stern even questioned the survivability of the alliance as it comprised people with quite different view united with the ambition to beat Netanyahu and take senior positions in the new government, not be part of opposition.
"We might also see Netanyahu, in order to weaken the opposition, will try to lure Blue and White members to leave the party and join his new government," the expert suggested.
COALITION TALKS TO HAVE SOME HICCUPS
Though the official results of Tuesday's parliamentary elections have not yet been announced, Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he had already started coalition talks with right-wing parties. President Reuven Rivlin announced earlier in the day that he would begin meetings with political parties next week to ask their recommendations for nominating prime minister.
According to Kenig, Likud's record-high number of seats opposed to more modest results of its future coalition put Netanyahu "in a good position" in the upcoming talks.
"Because Likud managed to become stronger and because the potential coalition partners are slightly weaker, I think this put Netanyahu in a very good position in the coalition negotiation," he said.
Stern noted that Netanyahu seemed to have made some preliminary arrangements with his potential partners within the coalition, but would be challenged to meet the demand not only of other parties, but Likud members as well.
"Netanyahu needs not only to satisfy these coalition parties, he would pay high prices to members of Likud also. We are talking about 35 members and they would expect senior portfolios. This can make things quite problematic for Netanyahu, so that would take a bit longer," the expert explained.
Bell agreed, noting that the negotiations might take even months.
"There will likely be more than one crisis along the way as it will be impossible to meet all the contradictory demands for ministries. The coalition agreements will likely only be finalized at the very last minute, several months from now," he said.
CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS ONLY HELPED
In late February, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced his intention to file three corruption charges against Netanyahu, including bribery, fraud and breach of trust, with the prime minister saying that he had fallen victim of "witch hunt" aimed at affecting results of the elections. However, according to Bell, the allegations had the opposite effect.
"The Attorney General's rush to announce intended charges at the height of the political campaign ironically assisted Netanyahu by supplying evidence of the authorities' politicization," the expert noted.
Stern echoed these remarks noting that Netanyahu managed to gain support by portraying himself as the victim of a "witch-hunt."
"Netanyahu [depicted] the position of himself as the victim of the system, and this echoes with many of the traditional voters of Likud with strong sense of victimhood ... He was able to mobilize these voters," he said.
At the same time, Bell noted that most voters were primarily concerned about the country's security and foreign relations - the areas in which Netanyahu had depicted himself as the most viable choice.
"The main issues for most voters continued to be Israel's security against conventional, non-conventional and terrorist threats, the economy, and Israel's foreign relations, and Netanyahu led throughout the campaign as the person more Israelis thought to be most appropriate to continue leading the country," the expert said.
In December, Netanyahu called snap elections for April 9 amid corruption allegations against him. Initially, the parliamentary elections were slated for November 2019. If re-elected for the fifth term, Netanyahu will become the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history surpassing the Jewish state's founding father, David Ben-Gurion.
