Israel vote deadlock confirmed by near-complete official results
Jerusalem: Near-complete official results Friday confirmed a deadlock in Israel's general election this week, putting Benny Gantz's party as the largest but without an obvious path to form a majority coalition.
The results from Israel's election committee showed Gantz's centrist Blue and White with 33 seats out of 120 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud with 31.
Final results will be published on Wednesday, it said, and there could be changes before then. The committee said the results did not include 14 polling stations where verifications were still ongoing. Israeli media said that meant 99.8 percent of the votes had been counted. The third-largest total was the mainly Arab Joint List alliance, which won 13 seats, followed by the Jewish ultra-Orthodox party Shas with nine.
Another ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, won eight seats, as did ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman's nationalist Yisrael Beitenu. The results have put Netanyahu's long tenure in office at risk.
On Thursday, he acknowledged the results did not allow him to form a right-wing coalition as he hoped and instead called on Gantz to form a unity government with him. Gantz responded by saying he would have to be prime minister in a unity government since Blue and White was the largest party.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin plans to begin consultations with all parties voted into parliament on Sunday to decide who to choose to try to form a government.
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BJP does not follow democratic norms: Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi
Kozhikode(Kerala) (PTI): Congress MP from Wayanad Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who arrived on a two day visit to Kerala after her maiden electoral win, on Saturday attacked the BJP by accusing it of not following usual democratic norms even in political fights.
Priyanka compared the BJP's behaviour with the landslides that hit Wayanad in July, saying just like the natural disaster the saffron party's conduct knows no rules, offers no explanations and follows no democratic norms that are normally adhered to in political fights.
"The political challenges we face (from the BJP) today are like the landslides. There are no rules. There are no explanations."
"The behaviour of the ruling party (at the Centre), the BJP, knows no democratic norms, not even those we normally adhere to in a political fight," she said while speaking at a joint public meeting, with her brother and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, at Mukkam here.
She further contended that institutions were being destroyed leading to the wavering of the people's basic faith in the electoral process and "the institutions that held our country together".
Priyanka assured the people of Wayanad LS constituency that she was in the Parliament for them and it is their voice that she will raise there.
"It is your voice that I will raise, it is your problems that I will try to resolve and it is your beliefs, values and aspirations that I will stand for each and every day from now till the end," she said.
After the joint public meeting at Mukkam in Thiruvambadi assembly constituency here, receptions will be held for her at Karulai in Nilambur, Wandoor, and Edavanna in Eranad during the day, the party said.
The Wayanad constituency comprises seven assembly segments of Mananthavady (ST), Sulthan Bathery (ST), and Kalpetta in Wayanad district; Thiruvambady in Kozhikode district; and Eranad, Nilambur, and Wandoor in Malappuram district.
Priyanka had scored her maiden electoral victory by winning the Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll with a huge margin of 4,10,931 votes, which is bigger than the lead her brother Rahul secured when he won from the constituency during the Lok Sabha general elections held early this year.
