Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has officially been reelected as Israel’s Prime Minister for the fourth time.
The election race came down to the wire.
As of 5:25 a.m. (Israel time), with more than 99.5% of the ballots having been counted, Likud was in the lead with 29 seats – five more than Issac “Bougie” Herzog’s Zionist Union Party.
While many had already declared Bougie as the winner, the right was able to scathe by in an election that saw a 71.8% voter turnout.
The victory comes only hours after Netanyahu was widely criticized for a Facebook comment in which he warned that Arabs were “moving toward the polling stations in huge numbers”.
These remarks came the day after Netanyahu publicly declared that if he was to be reelected, there would be no Palestinian state. His comments, meant to appeal to his hardliner supports, caused widespread controversy around the world.
Netanyahu is only the second Israeli Prime Minister to be elected for a fourth term, with the exception of David Ben Gurion. He served his first term from 1996-1999, and has been serving his second, third, and now what will be his fourth term, since 2009.
