Israelis are prearing to vote on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival in a fourth election in two years, with the veteran leader hoping a rapid COVID-19 vaccine campaign will win him another term.
Opinion polls show the race too close to call.
Since 2009, he has led the politically polarised nation where supporters hail him as “King Bibi” and opponents call him “crime minister”.
Opinion polls indicated an uptick for Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party in the campaign’s final days, giving a prospective of a conservative ultra-Orthodox Jewish coalition around 60 seats in the 120-member parliament.
A possible but more unlikely, alliance among right-wing, centrist and left-wing parties opposed to a Netanyahu-led government also fell short of a ruling majority in the legislature.
However it could also be within reach of power, surveys show.
Polling stations open at 7am local time on Tuesday and close at 10pm, when exit polls could point to voting trends, if not a clear winner.
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.
Read the article by Jeffrey Heller in The Canberra Times.