ANALYSIS:Despite coming second, the probable coalition numbers favour the hard-right Bibi Netanyahu becoming Israel's next prime minister, writes MARK WEISS.
QUESTION: WHAT is the only contest in the world that has no winner? Answer: An Israeli election.
That was the joke making the rounds yesterday after Tuesday’s general election produced the bizarre result of the largest party, the centrist Kadima led by foreign minister Tzipi Livni, probably not ending up as the party which will form the government.
That dubious honour is likely to go to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing Likud party received one seat less than Kadima: 27 to 28 in the 120-seat Knesset.
Under the Israeli system, the president confers the task of forming the next government on the candidate with the best chance of creating a working coalition.
In all previous elections that was the leader of the largest party: this time it probably won’t be.
The leaders of parties which won 65 Knesset seats are expected to recommend to President Shimon Peres next week that Netanyahu forms the next government.
It is not clear how many parties will recommend Livni. Kadima’s most obvious partner, the left-wing Labor, which won a paltry 13 seats, is heading for the opposition.
The three Arab parties, which together won 11 seats, are expected to recommend neither candidate. When Peres hosts the party delegations next week to hear their recommendations, he will likely cast his mind back to the elections of 1984.
As head of Labor (then called the Alignment), Peres claimed victory after his party won the most seats. But he failed to muster the support of 61 Knesset members to form a government. Neither could Likud, headed by Yitzhak Shamir.
The solution was a national unity government based on the concept of rotation.
Peres served as prime minister for two years while Shamir was foreign minister. For the second half of the government’s term they reversed roles.
The two men entered the arrangement with great reluctance and only because of a lack of an alternative.
Few remember the period fondly, and tensions remained throughout the government’s time in office. But it worked, and the Peres-Shamir national unity coalition was one of the only governments in Israel’s history to last a full term.
Will President Peres recommend to Netanyahu and Livni another rotation as a way out of the current constitutional mess?
Likud politicians were quick to reject the idea yesterday, stressing that Netanyahu already has the support of a majority of Knesset members to form a government.
But Netanyahu wants to avoid a narrow coalition based entirely on right-wing and religious parties.
A narrow coalition probably wouldn’t last long and could also put Israel on a collision course with the new administration of US president Barack Obama, who has vowed to “aggressively pursue” Middle East peace.
Netanyahu wanted to head a unity government that included both Labor and Kadima, but with Labor almost certain to join the opposition, that leaves only Kadima.
The coming weeks in Israel will be dominated by political wheeling and dealing. The key question will be whether Netanyahu will be able to persuade Kadima to join his government in the absence of a rotation agreement.
One possibility was that Kadima will be offered two of the three senior portfolios of defence, finance and foreign affairs.
A few months ago Netanyahu was considered a safe bet not only to become Israel’s next prime minister, but also to head the largest party by far. But then came the war in Gaza, which indirectly caused a chain reaction that led to Kadima closing the gap and eventually overtaking Likud by a single seat.
Arab Knesset members spoke in support of the Palestinians and Israel’s Arab citizens marched in support of the beleaguered residents of Gaza, accusing the Israeli army of committing war crimes.
The backlash from Israel’s Jewish majority resulted in a surge in support for the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu, which advocates a loyalty oath to Israel for the country’s Arab minority residents.
But Yisrael Beiteinu’s support came from other right-wing parties.
The biggest loser was Likud, which lost votes steadily to Avigdor Lieberman, the bulky former bouncer who kept up his racist attacks based around the simple slogan “Without loyalty there is no citizenship”.
With the gap between Likud and Kadima down to only a couple of seats by the weekend before the election, Livni made a last-ditch appeal to anyone who wanted to prevent Netanyahu becoming premier, with the slogan: Either Tzipi or Bibi.
It worked, and it was the dramatic late swing to Kadima from Labor and the smaller left-wing Meretz that stole outright victory from Netanyahu.
Mark Weiss reports from Israel for The Irish Times