Early legislative elections were held in Israel on 17 March 2015 to elect the 120 members of the twentieth Knesset. Disagreements within the governing coalition, particularly over the budget and a "Jewish state" proposal, led to the dissolution of the government in December 2014. The Labor Party and Hatnuah formed a coalition, called Zionist Union, with the hope of defeating the Likud party, which had led the previous governing coalition along with Yisrael Beiteinu, Yesh Atid, The Jewish Home, and Hatnuah.
The incumbent prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, declared victory in the election, with Likud picking up the highest number of votes. President Reuven Rivlin granted Netanyahu an extension until 6 May 2015 to build a coalition when one had not been finalized in the first four weeks of negotiations.Rivlin grants Netanyahu 2 week extension to form coalition The Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2015 He formed a coalition government within two hours of the midnight 6 May deadline. His Likud party formed the coalition with the Jewish Home, United Torah Judaism, Kulanu, and Shas, with the bare minimum 61 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu later joined the coalition in May 2016.
Background
During late November and early December 2014, there were serious disagreements between parties in the governing coalition, particularly over the budget and a "Jewish state" proposal.Netanyahu says Israel could be headed to early election Reuters, 1 December 2014 On 2 December, Likud announced it would support a dissolution bill, with a vote scheduled for 8 December. Hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid from their cabinet portfolios.Accusing Lapid and Livni of attempted ‘putsch’, Netanyahu fires them, calls elections Times of Israel, 2 December 2014 In the first reading of the dissolution bill on 3 December, it was approved by a vote of 84–0, with one abstention. The second and third readings were held on 8 December, with the third reading passing with a vote of 93–0.
The final election turnout was 72.3%, 4.6% higher than in the previous election and the highest since the 1999 elections, which saw a 78.7% turnout.
Initially, exit polls reported a virtual tie between the Likud and the Zionist Union, a coalition headed by Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog and former justice minister Tzipi Livni. Both Netanyahu and Herzog began attempts to build a coalition in preparation for a possible government, with Herzog calling Netanyahu's statement "premature". However, when the counting of the votes on 18 March 2015 revealed a significant lead for Likud, Herzog acknowledged that "the only realistic option" was to remain in the opposition. He stated in a 19 March 2015 post-election interview that he still hopes to be the prime minister.
Date During the meeting held with Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein on setting the date of the election, Likud and the Jewish Home favoured 10 March, the Labor Party requested 17 March, Shas and United Torah Judaism preferred 24 March, whilst the Arab parties requested that the elections be delayed until May.Knesset votes to dissolve; new elections called for March 17 The Times of Israel, 3 December 2014 The date was ultimately set for 17 March.
Calendar 29 January 2015 – Deadline for parties to submit final Knesset candidate lists to the Central Elections Commission 5 March 2015 – Election Day for members of Israeli diplomatic missions – Israeli diplomatic staff, their spouses, and Jewish Agency representatives vote, with ballot boxes set up in 96 Israeli diplomatic missions worldwide. 13 March 2015 – Deadline for publishing election polls and predictions 15 March 2015 – Election day for serving soldiers. 668 ballot boxes set up on military bases, and mobile polling stations are deployed to travel between remote army posts. Serving soldiers may vote from this day to the end of the elections. 16 March 2015 – Starting from 19:00 campaigning using assemblies, meetings, speakers, and media is prohibited. 17 March 2015 – Election Day. Most polling stations for the general public opened at 7:00 AM, although some polling stations in rural communities, hospitals, and prisons opened an hour later. Some 10,372 polling stations were set up, including 56 ballot boxes in prisons and 255 ballot boxes in hospitals. Polls in prisons closed at 9:20 PM. Polling stations open to the general public closed at 10:00 PM. Hospital staff and emergency room patients who were not able to vote while polling stations were open were issued special documents allowing them to vote after 10:00 PM.
Electoral system
The 120 seats in the Knesset are elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency. The electoral threshold for the 2013 elections was 2%, but on 11 March 2014, the Knesset voted to raise the threshold to 3.25%. The vote was boycotted by the opposition. In almost all cases, this is equivalent to a minimum party size of four seats, but on rare occasions, a party can end up with three.
Joint electoral lists
Continuing their long-standing alliance, Degel HaTorah and Agudat Israel ran on a joint electoral list named United Torah Judaism.
In December 2014, the Labor Party and Hatnuah agreed to form a joint electoral list named Zionist Union.
The new Yachad party and Otzma Yehudit agreed on a joint electoral list.
Following the raising of the electoral threshold, Balad, Hadash, the southern branch of the Islamic Movement, Ta'al, and the United Arab List agreed in January 2015 to form a joint electoral list named Joint List.
Surplus-vote agreements
Two parties could make an agreement so that they were considered to be running on a joint list when leftover seats were distributed. The Bader–Ofer method favors larger lists, meaning that a joint list is more likely to receive leftover seats than each list would individually. If such a joint list were to receive a leftover seat, the Bader–Ofer method would be applied a second time to determine which of the parties that make up the joint list would receive it.The Distribution of Knesset Seats Among the Lists – the Bader-Offer Method, Knesset website The following agreements were signed by parties prior to the election:
Likud and the Jewish Home Yisrael Beiteinu and Kulanu Zionist Union and Meretz Shas and United Torah Judaism
Parliament factions
The table below lists the parliamentary factions represented in the 19th Knesset. Name Ideology Symbol Leader 2013 resultSeats at 2014dissolution Votes (%) Seats Likud National liberalism Benjamin Netanyahu23.34% Yisrael BeiteinuNationalismSecularism Avigdor Lieberman Yesh Atid Liberalism Yair Lapid14.33% Labor Social democracy Isaac Herzog11.39% The Jewish Home Religious ZionismNational conservatism Naftali Bennett9.12% Shas Religious conservatism Aryeh Deri8.75% UTJ Religious conservatism Yaakov Litzman5.16% Hatnua Liberalism Tzipi Livni4.99% Meretz Social democracySecularism Zehava Gal-On4.55% Ra'am-Ta'al Arab nationalismIslamism Ibrahim Sarsur3.65% Hadash CommunismSocialism Ayman Odeh2.99% Balad Arab nationalismPan-arabism Jamal Zahalka2.56% Kadima Liberalism Shaul Mofaz2.09%
Campaign
Likud
Likud leadership election Netanyahu Danon 75% 19% The Likud list 1 Benjamin Netanyahu 2 Gilad Erdan 3 Yuli Edelstein 4 Yisrael Katz 5 Miri Regev 6 Silvan Shalom 7 Moshe Ya'alon 8 Ze'ev Elkin 9 Danny Danon 10 Yariv Levin 11 Benny Begin 12 Tzachi Hanegbi 13 Yuval Steinitz 14 Gila Gamliel 15 Ofir Akunis 16 David Bitan 17 Haim Katz 18 Jackie Levy 19 Yoav Kish 20 Tzipi Hotovely 21 Dudu Amsalem 22 Miki Zohar 23 Anat Berko 24 Ayoob Kara 25 Nava Boker 26 Avi Dichter 27 Avraham Neguise 28 Nurit Koren 29 Yaron Mazuz 30 Oren Hazan 31 Sharren Haskel 32 Amir Ohana33Yehuda Glick34Osnat Mark
Prime Minister Netanyahu called a primary for 25 December 2014; however, it was postponed until 6 January. After the election was called, the prime minister demanded a vote of the central committee to move it back up to 31 December. This was passed in a mini-referendum. The candidates were Netanyahu and former deputy defense minister Danny Danon. Likud's internal court changed the date to 6 January 2015 after finding that the vote lacked a two-thirds majority. A panel of Likud judges accepted Netanyahu's appeal and allowed the vote to occur on 31 December 2014.
The controversy over the timing of the primaries led to an internal investigation resulting in a report by party comptroller Shay Galilee that claimed Netanyahu had misused party employees. Galilee subsequently invited Netanyahu to a pre-disqualification hearing, which resulted in Netanyahu being prevented from running in the primaries. The prime minister immediately appealed to the Likud internal court. Menachem Ne’eman, the chairman of the Likud election committee, has claimed that Galilee acted outside his authority and that his decision is invalid. Netanyahu's attorney and his primary campaign have contested the disqualification. Netanyahu was allowed to run.
Primary results and aftermath The primary results were widely seen as a victory for Netanyahu and the more moderate faction within Likud, as opposed to the far-right fringe. Moshe Feiglin, who for a long time led his own far-rightist faction within Likud and once challenged Netanyahu for the chairmanship, suffered a major defeat in the primary, failing to win a realistic spot on the ticket. In response, he left Likud and announced plans to form a new party. Feiglin said his new party, which may be called the Jewish State Party, will not run in the 2015 election, but will run in the next election after that.
Platform
The major foreign policy focus of Benjamin Netanyahu during this campaign has been to "prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability, by turning world opinion in favor of maintaining and expanding economic and diplomatic sanctions against Tehran". Netanyahu reiterated his positions on Iran to a joint session of the United States Congress. In the Middle East peace process, "Netanyahu has spoken out against further withdrawals from land, further releases of terrorists from prisons, or dividing Jerusalem in any way". Additionally, Netanyahu and other Likud members suggested that positions that he had made in his famous Bar Ilan speech were now null and void. He reiterated this position on the last day of the campaign, telling Makor Rishon that "If I'm elected, there will be no Palestinian State".
Domestically, Likud "calls for a free-market economy with social sensitivity", suggesting that in order "to remain competitive in a global market, there is a need for budgetary discipline, lowering taxes, an effectively managed stock market, and growth of the private sector". The party has also pledged to "implement State Comptroller Joseph Shapira's recommendations for ending the housing crisis and improve benefits for the self-employed".
On election day, Netanyahu made a public statement, claiming:Binyamin Netanyahu: 'Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves', The Guardian, 17 March 2015
It has been argued that this statement had implications on the Likud victory in the election. Following the elections, Netanyahu said he regretted the message.
The president of the United States, Barack Obama, criticized that statement.
Zionist Union The Labor leadership election Herzog Yachimovich 58.5% 41.5% Zionist Union list 1 Isaac Herzog 2 Tzipi Livni 3 Shelly Yachimovich 4 Stav Shaffir 5 Itzik Shmuli 6 Omer Bar-Lev 7 Yehiel Bar 8 Amir Peretz 9 Merav Michaeli 10 Eitan Cabel 11 Manuel Trajtenberg 12 Erel Margalit 13 Mickey Rosenthal 14 Revital Swid 15 Danny Atar 16 Yoel Hasson 17 Zouheir Bahloul 18 Eitan Broshi 19 Michal Biran 20 Nachman Shai 21 Ksenia Svetlova 22 Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin 23 Yossi Yona 24 Eyal Ben-Reuven 25 Yael Cohen Paran 26 Saleh Saad 27 Leah Fadida 28 Robert Tiviayev 29 Moshe Mizrahi 30 Eldad Yaniv
The Labor Party held its primaries on 13 January 2015, in which Isaac Herzog won against Shelly Yachimovich.