Sharon’s Party Victorious in Israeli Elections

According to a television exit poll, the Likud party stands to win between 32 and 36 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

The opposition Labor Party, which had been campaigning to reopen negotiations with the Palestinians, previously held 26 seats, but emerged with only18 seats — the party’s biggest loss ever.

Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna telephoned Sharon on Tuesday night to concede the election and congratulate him on his victory.

Later, Mitzna told a crowd of supporters, “The Israeli voter has spoken. Many did not exercise their right to vote and in that way expressed their protest.”

He referred to Tuesday’s record low voter turnout. Only some 64 percent of Israel’s 4.7 million registered voters cast their ballots, down from about eighty percent in past elections. This is the fourth time Israelis have been called to vote since 1996, and it’s been 15 years since an Israeli government has served out a full term.

Israel’s centrist Shinui Party secured 14 seats, up from their previously held five, according to exit polls. Led by Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, a former television host and Holocaust survivor, the Shinui (meaning “change” in Hebrew) opposes state benefits given to the ultra-orthodox.

“The public has clearly declared that it wants a different Israel,” Lapid told Israeli weekly, Ha’aretz.

The Shinui Party platform protested the estimated $1 billion spent each year by the Israeli government in subsidies to the ultra-orthodox. The group is exempt from serving military service and members are given living subsidies. The religious devotees have traditionally been seen as essential to preserving the nation’s Jewish identity.

With the election over, Sharon is now left with the task of organizing a coalition government. However, many Labor Party members have said they will refuse to enter into a coalition government with Likud.

“The peace camp has been humiliated; the burden of proof is now on the right. We will not join Sharon’s government. I can only hope that Sharon manages to accomplish in his second tenure what he failed to achieve in his first,” Ophir Pines-Paz, secretary general of the Labor Party, told an Israeli newspaper this week.

If Sharon forms a ruling majority with far-right and religious parties it could lead to more severe crackdowns in the Palestinian territories. The current cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians is considered the worst in decades. It began in September of 2000 after Sharon visited the Temple Mount, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

A finalized government is not expected for more than a week as political figures wrestle to determine political alliances.

Tuesday’s elections took place under heavy security. The Israeli government imposed a travel ban since Sunday on Palestinians to allay fears of militant attacks.

Meanwhile, four Palestinians were killed in a blast in northern Gaza late Monday, and four more Palestinians were killed as Israeli troops entered the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. The travel ban halted Palestinian movement in and out of the West Bank and prevented Palestinians from crossing into Jordan and Egypt.

The Election Day deaths pushed the death toll since September 2001 to more than 1,800 Palestinians and nearly 700 Israelis.