As Israelis vote on Tuesday in their fifth parliamentary election in less than four years, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping to return to power, but polls are predicting another deadlock, The New York Times reports.
Once again, voters are choosing between a right-wing bloc led by Mr. Netanyahu, who is currently the opposition leader, and the governing alliance of right-wing, left-wing and centrist parties that share little beyond their opposition to the former prime minister.
Both blocs are projected to fall short of a majority in Israel’s 120-seat Parliament. That could force another early election in early 2023 — in what would be the sixth national vote since April 2019 — and keep Yair Lapid, the centrist prime minister, in charge as a caretaker leader.
“Vote wisely,” Mr. Lapid said as he voted at a school in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning. “Vote for the state of Israel, the future of our children and our future in general.”
Mr. Netanyahu voted later in the morning in Jerusalem, telling a television crew: “I say to all citizens of Israel: It is a great privilege to go and vote.”
He is currently on trial for corruption, and his fitness for office remains a central question of Israeli politics. For the fifth election in a row, Israelis are roughly evenly divided between Mr. Netanyahu’s critics, who feel that he should stay out of office until the end of his trial, and his supporters, who see his trial as a sham.
Beyond Mr. Netanyahu, the election is also a referendum on the kind of society Israelis seek to build.
His coalition partners include ultra-Orthodox lawmakers who oppose teaching math and English to their children, and far-right settlers who frequently antagonize Israel’s Arab minority and seek to remove checks and balances on the parliamentary process.
To Mr. Netanyahu’s backers, his victory would shore up Israel’s Jewish character. It would reassure certain right-wing Jewish Israelis who fear that the unprecedented involvement of an Arab party in the departing government has threatened the country’s Jewish identity and endangered their personal safety.
To his opponents, a win for Mr. Netanyahu would endanger the integrity of Israeli democracy — particularly after Mr. Netanyahu’s allies announced plans for sweeping judicial reform — and make it even harder for the country’s Jewish and Arab communities to get along.
By 10 a.m. on Tuesday, turnout stood at 15.9 percent, higher than at the equivalent stage of any election for 35 years, suggesting that voters remain motivated despite the repeat elections.
Parties must secure more than 3.25 percent of the vote to enter Parliament. Polling suggests that many Arab voters will stay away from the polls, alienated by mainstream parties and frustrated about divisions among Arab politicians. That could mean that Raam — a small Arab party led by Mansour Abbas, a dentist — may struggle to breach the required threshold, making it far harder for Mr. Lapid’s bloc to win a majority.
