Israel Election: No Clear Majority as Key Votes Remain Uncounted

A woman walks past a banner featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump in West Jerusalem, a day after the nation's general election. As nearly 90 percent of the votes have been tallied, Israel's election has not yielded a clear victor. Neither of the two main political blocs has secured the 61 seats necessary to form a government.

The Israeli Central Elections Committee reported on Wednesday that over five million votes were counted by 9 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT). Projections indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc is poised to win 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the opposition bloc, led by Gadi Eisenkot, is expected to gain 48 seats. Additionally, projections from Tuesday's vote suggest that Arab parties, including the Joint List and Ra’am, could collectively hold a record 19 seats.

Final results may be available as early as Thursday evening, but a definitive winner is not anticipated. More than 500,000 special double-envelope ballots, cast by individuals such as soldiers and diplomats voting away from their registered locations, are still pending count and could alter the seat distribution.

This election, the first since the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Gaza genocide, was widely viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership. Despite lacking a clear majority, the 77-year-old Prime Minister appears far from conceding defeat. Netanyahu will continue to serve as caretaker prime minister until a new government is established. President Isaac Herzog is scheduled to begin consultations with party leaders regarding the formation of a new administration next week, following the official release of election results. Herzog has appealed to all parties to prevent another election, which would delay government formation. However, coalition building is a common practice in Israel, and no single party has ever achieved an outright majority in the country's history.

Prior to the vote, Eisenkot had ruled out the possibility of forming a minority government that would include Arab-led parties, a stance also rejected by Netanyahu. Analysts suggest that as Netanyahu’s bloc is projected to be the largest, he may attempt to form a unity government that could potentially include Eisenkot, though this outcome remains uncertain.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Eisenkot stated that his opposition alliance is now concentrating on the "heavy task entrusted to us – bringing change to Israel and establishing a Zionist mobilisation government." He added, "This is the will of the people who expressed no confidence in the government of October 7th and the shirking, and in the bloc of shirkers in general. A bloc that is at the low point of two decades."

Amidst record turnout among Arab voters, Netanyahu’s Likud party alleged that Arab parties had engaged in election fraud. "The elections in the State of Israel were stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offences of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilise voters," the party declared in a statement. The Likud party indicated it was submitting hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence to the police, the Shin Bet, and the Central Elections Committee concerning alleged election theft at numerous Arab polling stations.

Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Joint List, reacted to exit polls at the party’s election headquarters in Nazareth, northern Israel, on October 27, 2026. The predominantly Arab Joint List political alliance stated, via the Turkish news agency Anadolu, that preliminary figures indicated Arab voter turnout played a crucial role in preventing Netanyahu and his coalition from achieving a parliamentary majority, while emphasizing that final results were still pending.

The alliance asserted that voters responded to incitement and intimidation at the ballot box by rejecting a "government of butchers" and its policies, which they described as involving home demolitions, racism, and war crimes. The Joint List highlighted that its electoral support reflects a demand for political unity and the establishment of a force capable of defending Arab citizens' rights without compromise. The party pledged to work towards removing Netanyahu's government and preventing its return, expressing readiness to cooperate on forming an alternative government. Jabareen mentioned that the alliance might support an anti-Netanyahu government from the outside but would not join it directly.