Netanyahu is left with no option to form a government in Israel with the scrutiny almost over

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the closure of polling stations in Jerusalem on Tuesday, DPA via Europa Press / Europa Press

Polarization and political blockade have taken hold in Israel after four elections in just two years.

The bloc of conservative and religious parties led by Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud has remained at the gates of an absolute majority after the virtual end of the vote.

With 99.5% of the votes counted on Thursday afternoon, the prime minister and his allies added 59 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, compared to 61 for a heterogeneous opposition as a whole.

The Central Electoral Commission plans to announce the final results - with no possibility of a shift in the balance between blocks - this Friday, before the start of the Sabbath and the Jewish Passover celebrations, during which public life is paralyzed in Israel.

The President of the Jewish State, Reuven Rivlin, will not begin consultations for the formation of a Government until April 5.

That same day, the prime minister is scheduled to appear before the Jerusalem court, which is trying him for three cases of bribery, fraud and abuse of power.

Netanyahu unleashed an electoral cycle at the end of 2018 that seems to have no end.

Its objective was to secure a governmental coalition with an absolute majority and to shield itself from the action of justice.

After four unsuccessful attempts and despite the success of the vaccination campaign that the Government has promoted - with half of the population completely immunized - Israel continues to be divided into two halves, in its favor and against it.

The government's Likud, in power uninterruptedly since 2009, has been the most voted party, with 30 seats.

But not even with the support of two ultra-Orthodox formations, the radical right of former minister Naftali Bennett - still undecided - and the extremist Zionist Religious Party, has he managed to gain a majority.

Netanyahu's move to gain additional support from the United Arab List Islamist movement - the smallest Knesset force, with just four seats - was aborted by his far-right Jewish supremacist partners who refuse to make a deal with "supporters of terrorism who deny the existence of terrorism. of the Jewish State ”.

Former conservative minister Gideon Saar, who broke with the Likud last year after confronting its leader, said after the near-final results were known that Netanyahu "lacks any option to form a government."

At the head of Nueva Esperanza, a party that has achieved six deputies, Saar has called through Twitter to "work for the formation of a Government of change."

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The opposition leader, the centrist Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party has received 17 seats, will have to coordinate up to eight minority formations ranging from the Jewish nationalist right to the equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood, past populism and the left. traditional Labor.

With a scraped majority in the Knesset, the opposition bloc can aspire to control the presidency of the House and urgently pass a law that prevents a defendant from presenting himself as a candidate for head of government.

Netanyahu would thus be deprived of the silver bullet of forcing the convocation of the fifth chained elections if, as everything seems to point out, the political blockade in the Knesset is perpetuated.

The only way out for the prime minister is to appeal to the real majority of the right (there are two conservative parties in the opposition bloc) seated in Parliament and get at least two defectors to shore up his sixth inauguration.