Israel heads to polls with PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s fate on knife-edge

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

On the eve of Israel’s general election, candidates on Monday scrambled to make a last-ditch effort to woo voters in a poll that remains on a knife-edge with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party trailing in opinion polls.

Netanyahu, who is seeking a record fourth term, has been harping upon his ability to keep the Jewish state safe from outward dangers, mainly the Iranian nuclear threat but is still trailing in opinion polls with the average citizen facing issues of rising costs of basic necessities.

65-year-old Netanyahu, who is nicknamed Bibi, came to power for the first time in 1996 and held the premiership until his crushing defeat in the 1999 election. He achieved a political comeback in 2009 and has been the premier ever since.

The Israeli Premier has been constantly at loggerheads with President Barack Obama and his recent efforts to undermine the US leader by addressing the Congress without coordinating with the White House has widened the rift.

His rival, 54-year-old Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, has been gaining in the opinion polls on a campaign that promises to repair ties with the Palestinians and the international community and also deal with middle class issues such as price rise.

Election will be held on Tuesday for 120 seats of the 20th Israeli Knesset. In the current Parliament Netanyahu’s Lukid Party has 18 seats.

About 5.3 million voters are eligible to vote and will begin casting their ballot across the 10,000 voting stations on Tuesday. During the 2013 elections, voter turnout was 67 per cent, and pollsters predict that it will be similar this year.

The latest opinion polls have predicted that the Zionist Union will take between 24 and 26 of Knesset’s 120 seats in the elections compared to 20-22 seats for Likud.

Such a result could give Netanyahu’s challengers the chance to build the next coalition government. Netanyahu, however, may scrape through into a fourth term
if the Zionist Union fails to muster enough support in an Israeli political spectrum where right-leaning parties are predominant.

A good chunk of Israeli voters, deeply divided, remained undecided a day before they cast their ballot with many analysts feeling that the floating voters would ultimately tilt the scales in favour of who forms the next government or becomes the king-maker in a coalition government formation.

Despaired of peace talks with the Palestinians, the focus of most of the voters this time revolves around the leadership quality of Netanyahu, his expense scandals which have badly tarnished his image along with his wife’s and middle class issues like a soaring cost of living.

Source:: Indian Express