A final count of election ballots on Thursday granted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party an additional seat in parliament, making it the largest faction in the Knesset and punctuating the Israeli leader’s victory.
The results released by Israel’s central election commission showed Likud capturing a total of 36 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, compared to 35 seats for its main rival, the centrist Blue and White party. An earlier count had the two parties deadlocked.
Altogether, Likud and its traditional Jewish ultra-Orthodox and nationalist allies command a 65-55 majority in parliament, putting Netanyahu in position to head the next coalition government. On Wednesday, Blue and White’s leaders conceded defeat.
The final count showed another nationalist faction, the New Right party of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, falling just short of the necessary 3.25% of the votes needed to get into parliament.
Although the ballot count is complete, commission head Hanan Melzer said the results were not official and still subject to review. He said final certified results are to be handed to the country’s president next Wednesday.
New Right, which fell just a few hundred votes short of entering parliament, said it would challenge the count.
The results presented late Thursday did not significantly alter earlier results from Tuesday’s election. They included a count of votes of soldiers, diplomats, prisoners and hospital patients who vote in unusual circumstances.