With virtually all the votes counted from Tuesday’s general election in Israel, the largest single party in the new parliament will be Qadima, which was formed some four months ago by Ariel Sharon and is now headed by Ehud Olmert. However, the party has won some 28 seats in the 120-member Knesset, well down on opinion-poll predictions. It is widely expected that Israel’s President Moshe Katsav will ask Olmert to try to form the new government.
The second largest party will be Labor with around 20 seats. Next in line is Shas with 13 – the party largely represents Jews of African and Middle Eastern origin.
The hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu has surprised most pundits with 12 seats, leaving Likud, the party which won the last election, languishing in fifth place with 11. Despite that, Likud’s leader Binyamin Netanyahu said he will not be resigning.
The rightist National Union-National Religious Party bloc won some nine seats. The biggest surprise of the election was the emergence of the Pensioners Party with seven.
United Torah Judaism, which represents religious Jews of European origin was returned to the Knesset with six lawmakers, while the secular-leftist Meretz lost strength and will have just four representatives.
The Arab bloc, comprising three lists, or an amalgam of four parties, made small gains and will have 10 representatives in the new parliament.
Turnout was the lowest in Israeli history at some 63 percent.