Israel Parliamentary Elections Begin TONIGHT (Our Time)
This election will mark the fourth parliamentary election in the past two years. Longtime leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been facing corruption charges which may influence the outcome of the election. The corruption charges have yet to be proven, however.
Recent predictions indicate there will be a tight race between those who support Netanyahu and those who do not.
Israel’s election system is quite different from the United States. In Israel, you vote for a political party of which there are many more than the USA. Then, the leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister.
Which are the main parties and their leaders? Here are the four top choices:
· Benjamin Netanyahu: He has been Prime Minister for five terms (not consecutively). He is the longest serving leader. His campaign platform lauds his success with the country’s vaccination campaign and the normalization deals with four Arab states (orchestrated by US President Trump). Netanyahu represents the Likud party and is the conservative choice.
· Yair Lapid: He is Israel’s opposition leader and ran in last year’s election as part of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White coalition. When Gantz and Netanyahu came up with a power-sharing deal, Lapid refused to take part. Lapid is considered to be a centrist leader. This party could be the second largest party (after Likud). His challenge will be to have enough to build a majority coalition.
· Gideon Saar: He served as the former education minister and broke away from the ruling party to form “A New Hope,” which comprised former Likud party politicians who want to replace Netanyahu. This party prides itself as a nationalist alternative to rule Israel. This party may not be strong enough to stand up against the Likud party. In my opinion, whenever a party breaks away from an original party, it only weakens both.
· Naftali Bennett; Bennet is a hardline nationalist politician. He was formerly Netanyahu’s education and defense minister.
The winning party is required to come up with at least a 61-seat majority to form a governing coalition. This has been a challenge with the past several elections and when the coalition could not be formed, another election resulted.
Elections begin March 23 (Israel is ahead of the West Coast of the USA by 10 hours). Check back later this week for election results or click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
PRAYER - Song For Israel encourages everyone to pray about these elections for the next 24 hours. Please pray that: 1) God would put His party and leader of choice into power; 2) Pray that there would be no election interference; 3) Pray that after the election, there would be no dangerous protests; 4) Pray that the newly-elected party/leader would be able to form a coalition so together they can lead Israel during these difficult times.