Election results

We're now two days after Election day, and the results have come in, about 98% of the votes have been tabulated, and it's pretty clear how things are panning out. Not that anything is actually clear.

The New York Times called the winner of the election "Gridlock."

Basically, the right-wing bloc of the parliament led by Bibi Netanyahu's Likud (remember, we're working with 120 seats; a ruling coalition needs at least 61 seats to govern). has 67 seats; the left bloc, led by Tzipi Livni's Kadima, has 53 seats. However, Kadima is the largest party, with 28 seats to Likud's 27 seats. So Likud and Kadima are virtually tied, but the right bloc is substantially larger.

The next step in the process is the President, Shimon Peres, meets with all the party heads (about 12 parties are in the new Knesset) and they recommend who they think would be the most likely to form a government, and then he makes his decision (based on number of seats to each party, seats to each bloc, and recommendations made). The appointed person (it will either be Livni or Bibi) then has 45 days to form a government. The coalition building process is incredibly complex and difficult, with policy negotiations (what, exactly, does this government stand for by way of child subsidies or the peace process) and doling out of Ministry portfolios to each party.

I've made this process seem far easier than it actually is; we did a mock coalition building exercise yesterday, and we had a very difficult time, and we have no egos or history or bad blood or actual animosity. Many parties detest each other (Shas hates Yisrael Beiteinu; Labor hates Likud; everyone hates the Arab parties) and cannot or will not work together. Until it becomes evident that they'll be left out of the government and then they quickly jump on. Additionally, Israel has never experienced something like this before, when the largest party is from the smaller bloc, making the political guessing game even more exciting.

Coalition negotiations have already started, with Livni and Bibi jockeying for votes and support. They're both courting Lieberman, the head of the ultra-right, secular, fascist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home) party, mainly made up of Russians and Arab-haters. They have 15 seats, and Lieberman is basically going to be the kingmaker, which is truly a horrible situation, except he, unlike most of the religious parties, is in favor of many secular things I like and he's also very much in favor of establishing a Palestinian state, except by way of population exchange, which has dubious international legality.

In short, it's a mess. I have no idea who will be tapped to form a coalition; hopefully whatever the next government is, it will be either Bibi or Tzipi (my choice, of the two) leading a centrist-right (because the majority of the seats are right, not my choice) coalition, instead of Bibi leading a right-right-right coalition, which is also possible. My guess is Bibi's internal inclination towards pragmatism (over ideology) will lead him to the former - which, from an international relations POV is much better. But it's really anyone's guess at this point. Peres has no great personal love for Bibi (in 1996, Bibi narrowly, narrowly defeated Peres, then head of the Labor party, in a Prime Ministerial election) but I'm not sure how much a role that will play. Whatever way this thing plays out, the formation of the 18th Knesset is going to make for an interesting next few months.