Source: MurrayReport
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday accepted the certified results of last week’s parliamentary elections as legally binding and began consultations with party representatives on forming a new government.
The move dealt a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to discredit the vote, in which he and his allies lost their majority in parliament, known as the Knesset, while Arab-led parties made historic gains.
“The elections are over. Now is the time to face reality,” Herzog said.
Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that Arab-led parties had “stolen” the election, possibly with foreign assistance.
Herzog began consultations with party leaders on Wednesday night to determine whom to designate to form a government — a process that could bring Netanyahu’s opponents to power.
Commission finds no fraud in Israel’s election
Israel’s elections commission said earlier on Wednesday that after a thorough investigation of all parties’ claims of fraud, it had found “no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results.”
Netanyahu’s Likud party did not respond to a request for comment.
A separate investigation by the Shin Bet intelligence service, which is headed by David Zini, a Netanyahu appointee and loyalist, into allegations of foreign interference in the election is still ongoing.
In a private meeting Wednesday of the elections committee’s members, its head, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, read out an intelligence assessment from the Shin Bet saying the agency believed there had been a “widespread phenomenon involving the influx of substantial funds into Israel from foreign states,” including from countries hostile toward Israel.