Summary

It was Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party that eventually emerged victorious in Israel’s hard-fought general election. Likud took 36 seats in the Knesset, narrowly edging out the Blue and White Party’s 35 seats.

Netanyahu will now have first crack at forming a coalition, and he’s expected to duplicate the far-right bloc of his previous term. There will be some horse trading on cabinet positions, but the incumbent prime minister will likely be successful in assembling a coalition within the 42-day time limit.