By Darryl Coote UPI | Posted by TOE

Millions of votes cast in Tuesday’s Israeli national election had been counted by Wednesday morning, but millions more remained to be tallied before the outcome of the consequential contest between longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition parties could be determined.

As of Wednesday morning, with an estimated 52% of votes counted and 57.3% of polling stations accounted for, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party had 20.68% of the vote, followed by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party with 16.71%, according to preliminary results from the Israel’s Central Elections Committee.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Together party with 9.01%, followed by several other parties, the results showed.

The election was held to fill the 120-seat Knesset, with the prime minister to be determined through the formation of a government. With neither bloc appearing to have secured an outright majority in the preliminary results, the election pitted Netanyahu’s five-party far-right and religious bloc against a four-party opposition bloc in their efforts to secure the 61 seats needed for an outright parliamentary majority.

The absence of a clear parliamentary majority in the preliminary results could mean or possibly months of negotiations before a government can be formed.

Despite the uncertainty, politicians claimed victory before their supporters.

“The preliminary poll results point to complete distrust in Netanyahu and the government of October 7, of the Zionist majority and the majority of Israeli citizens,” Eisenkot said on social media late Tuesday.

“If these are the final results, this is a victory for the statist-Zionist majority in Israel.”

Netanyahu told supporters that his right-wing bloc held a decisive majority among the Jewish and Zionist public, and called Likud “the largest party in Israel.”

“We must establish a strong, right-wing, national government,” he said.