Israel Votes Counted: Actual Netanyahu Victory More Decisive Than Exit Polls

After a six years in office, President Obama finally lost an election to lead the country, he wasn't running only helping and the country wasn't the U.S. it was Israel.  Yesterday after a very hard fought campaign Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a clear and surprising victory in the election for Israel's Knesset and the premiership.

It wasn't supposed to go that way. Most pundits saw a very close election, a possible loss for Netanyahu's Likud party but with enough center-right seats for Bibi to scrap together a coalition. When the exit polls were revealed yesterday afternoon when polls closed, it seemed as Likud scrapped together a tiny win, much better for Netanyahu than expected... but when votes were actually counted, incredibly there was a clear and decisive win for the incumbent and for the center right coalition.

With everything counted except for the military vote it looks as if Netanyahu’s Likud Party has captured 29 of the 120 seats in Parliament, launching past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.

 

Now the horse trading really begins as Netanyahu tries to put together a ruling coalition.

There is much more to the story of the Israeli elections which will be told here during the next few days.