Official results released by Israel’s Central Election Committee show that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party won 32 Knesset seats in the last election, taking it up a seat compared to first results released.
Netanyahu’s party, however, is still one seat behind Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, which maintains 33 out of 120 Knesset seats, as the two parties are in talks about a potential power-sharing deal in a national unity government.
Likud’s gain, after launching a “thorough investigation” into suspected voter fraud at polling stations, was at the expense of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, which has been reduced from eight to seven seats.
The amended results were to be formally submitted with President Reuven Rivlin, ahead of his decision on who will be tasked with forming the next governing coalition.
However, the results don’t change the number of recommendations each candidate for prime minister received, with Netanyahu at 55 and Gantz at 54.
Apart from Likud’s 32 lawmakers, Netanyahu has the backing of Shas’s nine lawmakers, United Torah Judaism’s seven and Yamina’s seven. Gantz has been endorsed by Kahol Lavan’s 33 lawmakers, put together with 10 out of 13 Joint List lawmakers, Labor-Gesher’s six and the Democratic Union’s five.
