How did the cities of Israel vote
foto: PUBLIKA.MD
Israel's elections are entering the final stretch with a nail-biting vote count on Wednesday morning, reports The Jerusalem Post.
It now appears that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party has a clear path to build a right-wing coalition. That coalition would consist of Likud (35), Shas (8), United Torah Judaism (8), Union of Right Wing Parties (5), Yisrael Beytenu (5), and Kulanu (4), for a total of 65 seats.
The opposition will most likely be made up of Benny Gantz's Blue and White (35), Hadash-Ta'al (6), Labor (6), Meretz (4), and Ra'am-Balad (4), with 55 seats in total.
Election data was made available early this morning via the the Central Elections Council's website, giving Israelis the opportunity to view the results for each city, town - and even specific ballot boxes.
What follows is a sample of election results by cities and towns.
Tel Aviv-Yafo
Unsurprisingly, Benny Gantz's Blue and White faction handily won in Tel Aviv-Yafo with almost 46% of the vote. Likud came in second with 19%, followed by far-Left Meretz with 9% and the more center-Left Labor with 8.5%.
Jerusalem
Likud won the highest amount of votes in Jerusalem with almost 25%. United Torah Judaism, the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox faction, received 23%, while the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas received 14%. Blue and White got 12%, and the Union of Right Wing Parties won 7%.
Beersheba
Almost the opposite of Tel Aviv, Likud won 43% of the vote in Beersheba, beating the Blue and White's 18%, while 9.5% voted for Yisrael Beytenu.
Haifa
Blue and White took Haifa with 33% of the vote, followed by the Likud with 24% and Yisrael Beytenu with 7%.
Cities and towns on the periphery:
Israel's northernmost town voted 48% for Blue and White. Likud received 14%, and Labor received 11%.
Eilat
The southernmost city in Israel mostly voted for Likud with 43% of the vote. Blue and White took 26%.
Kiryat Arba
Located next to the Palestinian city of Hebron, the settlement voted mostly for the Union of Right Wing Parties at 46%, while Likud received 33%. Interestingly, though the settlement is known as a bastion of the far Right, 14 people voted for Meretz and five voted for Labor.
Minority cities and towns:
Umm al-Fahm
One of the largest Arab cities in Israel, an overwhelming 80% of residents voted for Hadash-Ta'al, the union of the Jewish-Arab Communist Party and the Arab Movement for Renewal Party, while 12% chose Ra'am-Balad, a union of Arab nationalist parties. Some 39 residents voted for the Likud.
Rahat
In Israel's only Bedouin city, located in the Negev near Beersheba, 48.5% of residents chose Ra'am-Balad, while 40% chose Hadash-Ta'al.
Daliyat al-Carmel
Some 55% of Israel's largest Druze city voted for Blue and White, 24% voted for Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu Party and 9% of the votes went to Meretz.
Ghajar
The residents of this village are Alawites, the same religion followed by Syrian President Bashar Assad. Ghajar has been the subject of a decades-long border dispute between Israel and Lebanon; most residents hold Israeli citizenship. The village mostly voted for Kulanu, at 37%, followed by Blue and White with 24% and Likud with 15.5%.