Word: netanyahu
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Israel's election on Tuesday ended in a near draw, with the two front runners - centrist Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni and hawkish Likud chief Benjamin Netanyahu - each claiming victory. With nearly all votes counted, Livni's party won 28 Knesset seats, and Netanyahu's 27 seats, both falling well short of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset...
...next week for permission to form what Livni calls a "national unity government that would be founded on the large parties in Israel from both Kadima's left and right." It is a logical option. But Livni lacks support among the other parties. For starters, she needs to coax Netanyahu to join her. The two parties actually share many of the same policies and ideologies - Kadima broke away from Likud and drifted to the center - and, in theory, their combined strength could usher in a solid, center-right government. But the mutual antagonism of both leaders makes an accommodation...
...Netanyahu, a former Prime Minister, insists that he should be Israel's next Premier, not Livni. He may be right. Political analysts say the Likud leader stands a far better chance of stitching together a right-wing coalition with small religious groups and Yisrael Beitenu, a nationalist, anti-Arab party that was the surprise in this election. At the last poll, in 2006, Yisrael Beitenu won just 11 seats. Yesterday it won 15, knocking the venerable Labor Party, which picked up 13 seats, into fourth place...
...Netanyahu, despite his second-place in the head-to-head will nonetheless be able to command a Knesset-majority coalition if Livni fails to tempt some of his allies to back her. (And, of course, the price for Livni winning backing from parties of the right will necessarily restrain her plans to pursue peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.) It will be up to Israel's president, Shimon Peres, to tap Livni or Netanyahu to form a government, based on his consultations with all parties. And, of course, these projections are based on exit polls - and some observers suggest that...
...Rather than a comeback for moderation, the fact that Livni finished ahead of the poll-favorite Netanyahu was a function of the electorate's drift to the right: She picked up most of her support at the expense of the Labor Party, the late Yitzhak Rabin's erstwhile "party of peace" that had once ruled unchallenged, but which on Tuesday could only manage a distant fourth place with only 12 Knesset seats, according to the exit polls. And while Livni's strength was a function of Labor voters moving to the right to back Kadima, Netanyahu lost support...