Kadima – 29 Knesset seats, Labor – 19, Likud and Shas – 12 each, Israel Our Home – 11, National Union-National Religious Party – 9, Pensioners Party – 7, United Torah Judaism – 6, Meretz – 5, United Arab List-Ta'al – 4, Hadash and National Democratic Assembly – 3 mandates each.
Those are the official 2006 elections results announced on Wednesday by Judge Dorit Beinish, chairwoman of the Central Elections Committee. Voter turnout was the lowest recorded in Israeli history, at 63.2 percent.
Out of 5,014,622 citizens with the right to vote, 3,137,064 votes were legitimate; 49, 675 votes were counted as illegitimate.
'I hope number of voters will go up'
"Everyone who was involved in the hard, extensive work should feel like it's a holiday,"
Beinish hailed the 2006 elections. "This
process is one we can be proud of. Lately, there have been rumors about alleged faults in the results. There were technical faults – but no more than in any other elections."
“Even if you point to the low voter turnout (the lowest ever in Israel’s history), it was still higher than is typical in many other countries. I hope that in the future, the number of voters will go up, and we can learn from it,” Beinish said.
The judge will present the results to President Moshe Katsav, who
is expected to task Ehud Olmert Thursday with forming the next government. A round of consultations this week between Katsav and representatives of the various parties indicated that Olmert had the highest likelihood to win the Knesset’s confidence.
Olmert will have 28 days from Thursday to draw up the Cabinet. If he fails to complete the task in that time, he is permitted by law to request a 14-day extension. If he still fails to form a government, the president will re-assign the task to an alternate candidate from the 17th Knesset. President Katsav told Beinish that he hoped the next Knesset would earn greater public confidence than the outgoing one did.
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