Final Israel Election Results Confirm Stalemate

by Rob Walker | February 12, 2009 at 11:30 am

186 views | 1 Recommendation | 0 comments

The final results are in from Israel's general election, with the Kadima party getting 28 seats and the Likud party with 27. This leaves Israel in a stalemate, as neither party can form a government alone.

Both sides were already racing to form a coalition with the parties who share the remaining 65 seats. Numbers show more than 65 per cent of the electorate voted in the election, which was up just slightly from 2008.

The final results of Israel's general election have confirmed that neither of the two main parties can form a government on its own.
With military and overseas ballots counted, the governing Kadima still has 28 seats and the opposition Likud has 27 - well short of the 61 they need.

In the final tally, conservative Likud was only 20,000 votes behind Kadima. Earlier, the difference between the parties stood at 36,000 votes in Kadima's favour.

Kadima will receive 28 seats in the 120-seat parliament and Likud 27, far less than the majority each would need to govern. Livni and Netanyahu are already hard at work trying to line up potential coalition partners.

NowPublic member Tikun has been posting about the elections and gave us the latest update on how votes from Israel's soldiers didn't change the outcome of the election.

Following the final votes' count, Kadima remained with 28 mandates, Likud was close behind with 27 mandates, Israel Beiteinu was the third biggest party with 15 mandates, Labor recieved only 13 mandates, and Shas had 11 mandates.