Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party emerged victorious after Monday's elections with an estimated 59 out of the 120 Knesset seats after 90% of votes were counted but still short of the 61 seats needed to form a rightwing and religious coalition.
Netanyahu's main opponent, Blue & White leader Benny Gantz who conceded defeat, is far less likely to be forming a coalition after securing at the very least three seats less than Likud.
Likud leads with 28.52% of votes followed by Blue & White with 24.66%, in third place is the Joint List with 15.26%.
United Torah Judaism with 6.62%, Shas with 7.72%, Yamina with 5.34%, Labout-Gesher-Meretz with 5.65% and Yisrael Beytenu with 5.65%.
According to the Central Elections Committee, all polling stations have been counted and results are being calculated and reviewed and will be published in the afternoon hours on Tuesday.
These results will not include an estimated 340,000 votes from military polls, the votes of diplomats overseas and the tally from special polling stations including over 4000 votes from the dedicated stations set up for voters who have been exposed to the coronavirus.
Jerusalem voters favored the ultra-Orthodox parties as well as Likud which so far seems to have received 28.05% compared to only 23.91% in September.
United Torah Judaism received 23.95% as opposed to 24.98% in September, Shas was at 16.99%, Blue & White at 12.57%, Yamina at 7.94%, Labor-Gesher-Meretz at 5.01%, Yisrael Beytenu at 2.44% only.
After 197 polling stations out of 700 were counted in Tel Aviv, Blue and White appeared clearly in the lead with 46.79% of votes, Likud came in a far second with 22.11%, the Labor-Gesher-Meretz alliance with 14.7%, The Joint List with 4.3%, Shas with 5.7%, Yisrael Beytenu with 3.1% and Yamina with 2.3% of votes.
First published: 09:05, 03.03.20