Israeli president accepts certified election results ahead of negotiations on new government formation

Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday accepted the certified results of last week’s vote and said he would begin consultations with party representatives regarding the formation of a new government.

Neither the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor that of his main challenger, former military leader Gadi Eisenkot, obtained an absolute majority in Parliament. The two sides are currently holding hard-fought negotiations to convince smaller parties to join forces to create a new government.

Earlier in the day, Israel’s election commission said it found no fraud in last week’s vote, dealing a blow to Netanyahu’s attempts to discredit the results. Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly made baseless claims that Arab-led parties “stole” the elections, possibly with foreign aid.

The results showed that Netanyahu’s religious nationalist bloc lost its parliamentary majority, while Arab-led parties made substantial gains.

“The review found no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results,” the commission said in a statement.

The election board’s acting director, Dean Livne, said his investigation examined each complaint “individually and thoroughly” but found no evidence to support claims that the election results were invalid.

The results, which are expected to be officially certified on Wednesday, “accurately reflect the choices made by voters at the polls,” Livne added. A separate investigation by the Shin Bet intelligence service into allegations of foreign interference in the election is underway, according to an election commission spokesperson.

The electoral commission has said that while allegations that foreign actors sought to influence the election are serious, it does not believe such interference affected the election results.

“Our position is that even if the suspicions were founded, it would not undermine the integrity of the electoral process or the results of the elections as a whole,” the commission’s chairman, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, said on Sunday.

Netanyahu’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After receiving the certified results, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will begin meeting with each of the parties elected to Parliament on Wednesday.

After two days of consultations, he will choose the candidate – most likely Netanyahu or his main rival, opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot – who he believes is best placed to form a coalition government, paving the way for weeks of negotiations.

Neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor Eisenkot’s bloc of allies secured the parliamentary majority needed to form a new government. This raises the possibility of an alliance between the two rivals or an alliance between Eisenkot and some Arab-led parties. If neither man manages to form a government, the country will hold new elections early next year.