Reader TTS

Raf Sanchez Jerusalem 03 March 2020 5:47pm GMT Benjamin Netanyahu last night began trying to lure opposition MPs into joining his Right-wing coalition after a surprisingly strong election

result saw him win the most seats in parliament but fall just short of an overall majority.   With 90 per cent of the vote counted, the Israeli prime minister’s Likud party was on course to

win 36 seats compared to just 32 for Blue & White, the centrist party led by former army general Benny Gantz.  Mr Netanyahu and his Right-wing allies looked likely to win a total of 59

seats - just two seats shy of the 61 they need for an overall parliamentary majority.  The outcome was a remarkable comeback for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who had been

trailing in the polls for much of the campaign and whose trial on corruption charges is due to begin on March 17. “It is a victory against all the odds, because we had to face enormous

forces,” Mr Netanyahu told ecstatic Likud supporters at a victory event in Tel Aviv. “This has been a very great victory for the Right-wing camp, and particularly a great victory for us

Likudniks.” But even as the Likud faithful celebrated there were questions about where Mr Netanyahu would find the additional seats needed for a majority.  There were similar celebrations

after the election in April 2019, when the Right-wing bloc won 60 seats, but the prime minister was unable to form a government and the country plunged into two more elections in the 11

months that followed.    Hours after polls closed, Mr Netanyahu was already at work drawing up strategies on how to get his coalition to 61 seats. There will likely be several weeks of

coalition negotiations before any final political deals are announced.  Likud officials said one option was to try to win over more Right-wing members of Blue & White, an unwieldy

centrist coalition that has MPs from across the political spectrum.  In a speech to his dejected Blue & White supporters on election night, Mr Gantz pledged he would hold his party

together and not allow Mr Netanyahu to poach his MPs. The party would stay “strong, united and loyal to our path,” he said.  “I realise and share your feelings of disappointment and pain,

for this isn’t the result that we wanted to happen,” Mr Gantz told the crowd.  Another route for Mr Netanyahu could be to woo Avigdor Lieberman, a maverick secular-nationalist who served as

his defence minister before turning strongly against the prime minister. However, that path is complicated as Mr Lieberman is bitterly opposed to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties allied

with Mr Netanyahu. He said Tuesday morning he would not join any coalition that included those parties.    Finally, Mr Netanyahu may target Gesher, a small party run by the daughter of a

prominent former Likud minister.  Likud officials said they were confident they would get to 61 seats one way or another but Yariv Levin, a Likud minister, cautioned against complacency.

“Anyone who thinks that it will be easy to form a government is wrong, this will be a difficult task,” he said.  In his victory address, Mr Netanyahu pledged to move ahead with implementing

Donald Trump’s Middle East plan which would see Israel annex large swathes of the occupied West Bank. He is likely to wait until his coalition is fully formed but could theoretically push

ahead with annexation even during a transitional phase.  Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said: “It is obvious that settlement, occupation and apartheid have won the Israeli

elections. Netanyahu’s campaign was about the continuation of the occupation and conflict.”