Almost 45 percent of Israeli voters had cast a ballot by mid-afternoon on Tuesday, according to Israel’s Central Elections Committee, marking the highest election turnout by 2pm ( ) in 50 years. The figure was 6 percent higher than at the same time in the last elections in 2022. Mitchell Barak, a pollster and former aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera that voter turnout “is really high and that’s good”.
The election is largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s handling of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks and the wars that followed, the most intense period of combat for Israel since the 1973 surprise military campaign by Egypt and Syria. In a message more than five hours after polls opened, Netanyahu urged supporters to vote, saying turnout was high among his opponents on the left and among Palestinian citizens of Israel, about a fifth of the population. You all need to stream to the polls,” he said.
Those voters were casting ballots in “unprecedented” numbers, Palestinian candidate Ahmed Tibi said. Netanyahu and his main rival Gadi Eisenkot have ruled out partnering with Arab parties, citing a lack of shared values, although some possible scenarios envision them propping up a minority government to ensure Netanyahu is removed from office. Meanwhile, an Israeli rights group has filed a complaint with the country’s election commission warning that widespread delays could be suppressing the vote among Israeli Palestinians.
Though delays could be a result of high voter turnout, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in its complaint to the Central Elections Committee that delays had been reported in at least 18 communities. It asked the committee to investigate “whether these delays are deliberate.” The ACRI also reported “a large presence” of police and National Guard officers at a polling station in the Negev Desert, raising concerns that officers were using crowd control as a pretext to prevent people from entering to vote.
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