Benjamin Netanyahu looked on the brink of securing a fifth-term as Israel’s prime minister on Wednesday, after fending off a centrist challenge despite facing criminal corruption charges.

With nearly all votes counted, Mr Netanyahu’s Likud had won the same number of seats as Blue & White, a centrist coalition run by led by former general Benny Gantz, but the prime minister had a much clearer path to forming a coalition.

“This is a night of tremendous victory,” Mr Netanyahu told his cheering supporters in Tel Aviv. “I am very moved that the people of Israel again put its faith in me, for the fifth time”.

If the final tallies are confirmed, it will cement Mr Netanyahu’s reputation as the most successful election-winner in Israeli history and prove that his brand of divisive Right-wing politics is the country’s dominant political force.

Mr Netanyahu, 69, has been in power for 13 years and is now on course to overtake David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, as the country’s longest-serving prime minister.

He is positioned to form a new Right-wing government and promised during the campaign that he would annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, a step he has previously shied away from.