Israelis began voting on Tuesday (March 23) on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political survival in a fourth election in two years, with the veteran leader hoping his role in a rapid COVID-19 vaccine campaign will win him another term. A total of 6.5 million citizens have the right to vote.
Netanyahu's challengers - Yair Lapid of the center left 'Yesh Atid' party, Gideon Sa'ar, a former cabinet minister who quit Netanyahu's Likud to set up a new party, and Naftali Bennett from the far right 'Yemina' party - came to different polling stations to cast their ballots, and encourage the public to vote.
Opinion polls indicated an uptick for Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party in the campaign's final days, giving a prospective coalition of conservative and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties around 60 seats in the 120-member parliament.
Yair Lapid, a former finance minister who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, has emerged as Netanyahu's main challenger. No one party has ever gleaned enough votes for a parliamentary majority on its own in an Israeli election. Election night results may only be a starting point, with a final winner to be determined in backroom coalition talks.
