This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition leader, Benny Gantz, have begun what could be a prolonged period of high-stakes political bartering after an inconclusive election in Israel showed neither had a clear path to form a coalition.

Many Israelis hoped the poll, the second in five months, would provide clarity and pull the nation out of a political crisis. But the muddy results that trickled in on Wednesday appeared to deadlock the country instead.

With Israeli media reporting more than 90% of the vote counted, Gantz’s Blue and White party had 32 seats while its rival Likud had 31.

Both leaders have vowed to lead Israel’s next government, but would need to form unlikely alliances with smaller parties to do so.

Netanyahu wants to extend his record-breaking stretch as prime minister by forging pacts with religious politicians and far-right ultra-nationalists.

Israeli election: lengthy coalition talks loom as early results point to deadlock Read more

The 69-year-old is not only fighting for his political life but also potentially his freedom, with pre-trial hearings for three corruption cases against him opening in just two weeks. A majority in the 120-seat parliament could help grant him immunity from prosecution.

Speaking on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu insisted his party and its rightwing allies had chosen him to remain leader, even as it was unclear how he would form a government. “We decided unanimously that we’re going forward together to negotiations that will establish a government led by me,” he said.

Late on Wednesday, he cancelled a trip to the UN general assembly next week, in order to deal with the political crisis at home.

Gantz, a former general, has looked to centre and leftwing parties. But even those deals fall short of a parliamentary majority of 61 seats.

In the middle stands Israel’s seeming kingmaker and staunch secularist, Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for a secular unity government of Likud, Blue and White, and his own party, the rightwing nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home).

“The conclusion is clear,” he said outside his home in the occupied West Bank settlement of Nokdim on Wednesday. “There is one and only option: a national unity government that is broad and liberal and we will not join any other option.”

Israel election deadlock: what happens next? Read more

Later, he said that if Netanyahu and Gantz were not interested in the proposal, “they should not make the effort to call me, for us there is no other option”.

Lieberman’s plan was to exclude religious parties, but the option could be blocked by Gantz who has ruled out sitting in government with Netanyahu. It is not clear which of them would serve as prime minister, or whether they would split the four-year term.

Gantz has suggested instead that the ruling Likud party drop Netanyahu for someone else, and said that then he would consider a unity government. “We will act to form a broad unity government that will express the will of the people,” he told cheering supporters at a post-election rally in Tel Aviv.

That, however, would be a dramatic move for a party Netanyahu has kept in power for 10 consecutive years.

“We will never accept people that dictate who our leader is,” Nir Barkat, the former mayor of Jerusalem who joined Likud, said in comments at Netanyahu’s election party headquarters on Wednesday.

Politicians from an alliance of the country’s minority Arab population could also prove decisive, with a large turnout suggesting they may be the third largest party in the Knesset. Ayman Odeh, leader of the main Arab faction in parliament, has said he may back Gantz but even that would not give the opposition leader a majority.

Netanyahu, too, faces an tough battle, and with corruption indictments looming, the stakes for him in this election were higher than at any point in his three-decade political career.

In a 3.30am speech to his party in Tel Aviv, the sullen-looking prime minister spoke on stage in a hoarse voice, after spending the day rallying his supporters with a megaphone.

“In the next few days, we will begin negotiations to form a strong, Zionist government and in order to avert a dangerous, anti-Zionist government,” he said, as crowds cheered: “Bibi, the king of Israel.”

Israel’s election commission said 69.4% of all eligible voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s elections, a slightly higher proportion than in a previous vote in April that was scrapped when Netanyahu failed to form a government.

Once the vote is counted, party chiefs will recommend to the president who they plan to back as leader. The president then tasks that person with forming a government, giving them up to six weeks to do so.

The exit polls suggested Gantz could be that person, especially if he can forge a deal with Israel’s Arab parties. Netanyahu, who has demonised Israel’s significant Palestinian Arab minority as a fifth column that endangers the country, decried that option as “inconceivable”.

Quick guide The police investigations swirling around Netanyahu Show Hide The Israeli PM is embroiled in four cases involving allegations of bribery and misconduct. He denies wrongdoing in every instance. Case 1000 is an investigation into gifts received on a regular basis by Netanyahu and his family from two wealthy businessmen, including cigars and pink champagne. Case 2000 is examining whether Netanyahu behaved improperly during a taped conversation with a newspaper publisher in which he appeared to try to negotiate more sympathetic coverage in return for lowering the circulation of a rival paper. Case 3000 is an inquiry into alleged kickbacks in a deal to buy German submarines. Netanyahu is not a suspect, but he was closely involved in the deal and the case has ensnared members of his inner circle.

Case 4000, the most serious, involves allegations that Netanyahu offered incentives to the Israeli telecoms company Bezeq in exchange for positive stories in an online news website it owns, Walla.

To win support from Israeli rightwingers and settlers, both leaders have attempted to sell the promise of an expansionist Israel that extends its borders deep into Palestinian territory. Netanyahu vowed last week to declare up to a third of the occupied West Bank as part of Israel if he was re-elected and Gantz swiftly accused his political opponent of stealing his idea.

President Reuven Rivlin said he would do everything in his power to avoid another election campaign, but a third election in January remains an option if no leader can form a government.