Benjamin Netanyahu will remain Israel’s prime minister.
After intense campaigning, Netanyahu was re-elected for a fourth term. With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, Netaynahu’s Likud Party won 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament, YNet news reported Wednesday morning local time.
The Zionist Union alliance, his center-left rival led by Isaac Herzog, garnered 24 seats.
When pre-election polls Friday showed Herzog with a near five-seat lead over the Likud party, Netanyahu stepped up last minute campaigning that included a promise no Palestinian state would be established with him as Israel’s leader.
Election results showed his last minute campaigning — as well as his speech on the importance of a nuclear Iran to Congress earlier this month — worked in his favor.
“I am proud of the Israeli people that, in the moment of truth, knew how to separate between what’s important or what’s not and to stand up for what’s important,” Netanyahu told a crowd early Wednesday morning at Likud’s election party in Tel Aviv, according to the New York Times. “For the most important thing for all of us, which is real security, social economy and strong leadership.”
Before the election results were announced, Herzog told an election-night party crowd in Tel Aviv: “The public wants a change. We will do everything in our power, given the reality, to reach this. In any case, I can tell you that there will be no decisions tonight.”
The election, held just 26 months after the last one, was sparked in part because of Herzog’s successful challenge to Netanyahu, who had no clear challenger last time.
Elsewhere, the Joint List of Arab parties won 13 seats — up from 11 — in the parliament, becoming the third-largest faction. Yesh Atid, a centrist party, won 11 seats.
A group lead by Moshe Kahlon, a once popular former Likud minister, broke away from Netanyahu to form Kulanu, which won 10 seats, YNet reported.
The Jewish Home ended up with eight, down from its current 12. The ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu won six and the leftist Meretz four.
Turnout was roughly 72 percent, up four percentage points from voting in 2013.
