Israelis head to polls in an election too close to call

Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday in a race that is so tight it is impossible to know who will be the next prime minister.

One thing is certain: Binyamin Netanyahu, seeking a third consecutive term as prime minister, made a mistake when he broke up the government in December and called early elections.

Since then he has seen a comfortable lead wither away. The final polls showed his Likud party trailing the centre-left Zionist Union, led jointly by Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog and former justice minister Tzipi Livni, by four seats.

The momentum is with the anti-Netanyahu camp, but under Israel’s coalition system Mr Herzog still faces an uphill struggle to cobble together a viable coalition.

Ultra-Orthodox

For Mr Herzog to become the next prime minister, the first from Labor in 14 years, he will have to persuade the ultra-Orthodox parties to sit with the centrist Yesh Atid, led by former finance minister Yair Lapid, a fierce secularist who pushed through a Bill forcing ultra-Orthodox men to serve in the army.

He may also have to persuade the left-wing Meretz and the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu, led by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, to sit together.

Mr Herzog is a skilled politician who enjoys cordial relations with all the party leaders, but forming a stable coalition, if he is given the task by President Reuven Rivlin, will be the toughest political challenge of his life.

On paper Mr Netanyahu will have an easier task forming a government – even if Likud receives fewer votes than the Zionist Union – if he is backed by all the right-wing and religious parties and at least one of the centrist parties.

Yesterday he offered the key finance portfolio to Moshe Kahlon, the head of the centrist Kulanu party, which is expected to win about 10 seats in the 120-seat Knesset parliament. Mr Kahlon, who served as a popular Likud minister before falling out with Mr Netanyahu, immediately rejected the offer as another of the prime minister’s spins.

“Netanyahu had already promised me the Israel Land Administration and the finance ministry in the past, but did not keep his word,” he said.

“We’re 48 hours before the election, and there was no doubt such spin would come. I didn’t ask for the finance portfolio from Herzog or from Netanyahu. I asked for the finance portfolio only from the public.”

Only rarely does Mr Netanyahu grant interviews to the Israeli media but over the last few days he has launched a media blitz in an effort to shore up his political base and win back the increasingly despondent Likud faithful.

National unity

He rejected the idea of entering a national unity government with the Zionist Union or entering a deal to rotate the premiership with Yitzhak Herzog.

Last night Mr Netanyahu addressed a gathering of tens of thousands at a Tel Aviv rally organised at the last minute by all the right-wing parties in a rare show of unity after spending most of the campaign fighting each other.

Mr Netanyahu told the gathering that the elections were “fateful”. The majority of the public wanted him as prime minister, he said, but “we must close the gap, we can close this gap”, between the Zionist Union and Likud.

The prime minister promised that the right-wing Jewish Home party led by Naftali Bennett would be a “senior partner” in his coalition, “and it doesn’t matter how many seats it gets”.

And he vowed that if he wins another term as prime minister, there would be no territorial concessions and Jerusalem would remain undivided.