Israelis go to polls in general election

Israeli voters head to the polls in a general election that will determine the fate of the next cabinet.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 am local time (5:00 GMT) on Tuesday, where eligible voters are electing a new 120-seat Israeli Knesset (parliament).

No single party in Israel has ever managed to win an outright majority in the Knesset. Therefore, the party leader with the best chance of establishing a coalition would form the next cabinet.

Latest opinion polls indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party is behind the center-left Zionist Union coalition, an alliance of the Labor party, led by Isaac Herzog, and former Minister for Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party.

A recent poll by the Yediot Aharonot newspaper showed Netanyahu’s party trailing the Zionist Union by four seats.

A separate poll, which was jointly published by the Jerusalem Post and Maariv, also showed a four-seat difference between the two leading parties, with the Zionist Union project to gain 25 seats and Likud 21.

The election campaign has focused on socio-economic woes in Israel, such as the high cost of living . The heads of the Zionist Union, Herzog and Livni, have accused Netanyahu of using security scares to distract public attention from social problems.

Last week, Netanyahu acknowledged that his Likud party risks losing the election, calling Zionist Union leaders Herzog and Livni “a real danger.”

In addition, Netanyahu has accused the West, particularly the Scandinavian governments, of plotting to remove him and added that Western governments prefer that his opponents win the elections.

Relations between Israel and Scandinavian governments have recently soured. In October 2014, Sweden became the first EU country to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.