Israeli Election: Exit Polls

Ok, I can put my foot in my mouth, I concede incorrectness on many counts. Likud was the big loser of the night, falling to fourth place, whereas Labor replaced those that they lost. I made a table with the results of exit polling. Take this with a grain of salt, as these are NOT necessarilly the final results, which we won't know for sure probably until tomorrow morning.

Hebrew	English Party Name	Seats previously	Exit poll, channel 2
vnhse	Kadima (centrist)	-- N/A	32
vsIcg	Labor (leftist)	22	22
sUehk	Likud (rightist)	40	11
k"spnqhnUtkv sUjht	National Unity/National Religious Party	w/Y”B 12	9
x”a	Shas (Sephardic Haredi)	11	10
Ubh,hc ktrah	Yisrael Beteinu (Israel, our home)	W/Mafdal 12	13
יהדות התורה המאוחדת	UTJ (United Torah Judaism)	5	5
m”rn	Meretz (very leftist)	6	5
	Arab Parties	10	7
khd	Pensioners Party	--	6

I think that Kadima will form a coalition with Labor, Geel (the Pensioners Party... a real darkhorse), and if still shy of 61, perhaps also Meretz. This coalition will probably have around 65 seats. Notice that I did not include any religious parties in this coalition. There has never been an Israeli government that has not included a coalition with at least relgious party, apparently because it legitimizes its actions. For example, Yitzhak Rabin k"z had Shas in his coaltion, religiously legitimizing the Oslo Accords. I don't think that Shas or any other religious party would legitimize hitnadkut, the Disengagement. Well, now comes the fun part and I'll see how I did at predicting the coalition. After I said this, a few television commentators (I don't own a TV, I watched this at a get-together at Pardes as the Dean explained what was going on) offered similar collusive conclusions.

My prediction on government style: moderate liberal.

Voter Turnout: 63.8% of eligible voters. This is by far the lowest turnout in Israeli history, and is still considerably higher than any American elections (I'm talking about Presidential here. Gubernatorial midterms? Fuhgedaboud'it!)

After leaving Pardes, I went with a friend to collect some of the political banners which were now laying fallow on the sides of the roads (sometimes connected to things). We were cleaning that which would have been thrown away a few hours later, though the quote of the day, by a Pardes student named Aaron who saw us at work, was "Oh, do you need help with your grand larceny?"

Good times... Let's see what tomorrow brings... well besides the Solar Eclipse and the First of Months...