Israel’s electoral commission on Wednesday confirmed the final results of last week’s vote that deprived Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition of its governing majority, rejecting the prime minister’s allegations of massive fraud.
The main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, said Netanyahu had launched a “pogrom against democracy” by attempting to maintain power by discrediting valid votes and militarizing security forces against parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Hours earlier, Israel’s attorney general said she had blocked a request by the Shin Bet security service to question senior politicians from Palestinian-led parties because she had been presented with no evidence of wrongdoing.
“In a country governed by the rule of law, neither citizens nor elected officials can be questioned without evidence to justify it,” Gali Baharav-Miara said in a statement, after Haaretz reported an attempt to target four politicians.
Electoral authorities presented the final results to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, after rejecting allegations that they were tainted by large-scale foreign interference and electoral fraud.
“The review found no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results,” the Central Election Commission said in a statement.
The body’s president, Noam Sohlberg, said some “suspicions” were still being investigated, but “they do not cast doubt on the election as a whole or justify postponing the election results.”
When delivering the results, Herzog denounced racist attacks against Palestinian citizens who had voted at a historic rate.
“I condemn the profanity and racist expressions we have heard recently,” he said. “I have great respect for Arab society in Israel. I appreciate its contribution to the country in all areas of life and its desire for integration.”
Herzog will play a key role in forming the next government by choosing which politician gets the first chance to form a coalition. He is expected to appoint Eisenkot, and the announcement could come as early as Thursday evening.
On Wednesday evening, the Palestinian group Raam said it would recommend that Eisenkot form the next government. The largest Palestinian group, the Joint List, has said its priority is ousting Netanyahu and should therefore support Eisenkot as the most serious candidate to do so.
A former Israeli army chief who lost his son fighting in Gaza, Eisenkot has won public support from all of Israel’s Jewish opposition parties.
However, negotiations could take weeks and Eisenkot warned against current attempts to undermine confidence in the election results. He accused Netanyahu of using the security services as a weapon against his domestic opponents in an attempt to retain power.
“Employees of the Ministry of Defense, law enforcement and the civil service in Israel are servants of the state, not the king,” he said in a statement. “Woe to anyone who abuses his authority and his role for political considerations. »
Shin Bet chief David Zini, chosen for the role by Netanyahu, had ordered the interrogations and sought to classify the investigation as a security case, which would have allowed harsher conditions, including barring politicians from having a lawyer.
Nadav Eyal, an Israeli journalist and commentator, said the public should prepare for more extreme attempts to reject the election results and discredit the main opposition parties.
“The foundations for violence are gradually being laid,” he wrote on X. “What you hear breaking right now is the foundation of the legal and governmental order in Israel. »
Netanyahu presided over a racist campaign targeting Israel’s Palestinian citizens – about 20% of the population – and on Election Day began promoting unfounded accusations of mass fraud, now rejected by election authorities.
Ahmad Tibi, one of the most prominent and effective Palestinian politicians, was reportedly among those the Shin Bet sought to question. He responded to the latest allegations, as news broke of Democrats’ stunning victories in the US midterms, by attacking Netanyahu’s fear of democracy.
“(The) attorney general is investigating suspected links between the Joint List and Democrats in the United States,” Tibi wrote in a social media post. “It is suspected that in both cases the same sophisticated method was used: people arrived en masse at the polling stations, cast a ballot and returned home. »
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