How elections in Israel work

Jerusalem,

Israel goes to the polls Tuesday for its fourth general election in less than two years, after neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opponents could forge a durable majority.

Here are some facts about the electoral process:

Israel's system of proportional representation allows small parties a chance of winning seats in the 120-member Parliament.

There is, however, a barrier to the smallest, as a party must win at least 3.25 per cent of the votes cast to enter the legislature.

This pushes political minnows into tactical alliances that give them a better chance of passing the threshold.

Each party lists its candidates in order of precedence, decided either in primaries or by committee.

The number of seats allocated to each list is calculated according to the percentage of votes won.

For example, if a party or alliance wins 10 per cent of the vote, equivalent to 12 Knesset seats, the first 12 candidates on its list become lawmakers.

With Israel's plethora of parties, no single party has ever won an outright majority of 61 seats or more.

This means that after the votes are counted, the horse-trading begins, with larger parties or alliances wooing the smaller ones in an attempt to build a working coalition.

The President of Israel, currently Reuven Rivlin, is tasked with quizzing all parties after the results are declared to hear who they recommend to try to form a government.

On the basis of those talks, he asks the person he judges has the best chance of doing so -- not necessarily the leader of the largest party.

For example, following the March 2020 election, the centrist Blue and White alliance won 33 seats, three less than Netanyahu's Likud.

But Blue and White leader Benny Gantz was given the first shot at forming a government because he secured recommendations to do so from a narrow majority of lawmakers.

When Gantz's mandate to forge a coalition expired, Netanyahu took his turn, which also proved unsuccessful.

The two then formed a fraught unity government that collapsed after six months amid a budget spat and bitter acrimony between the two leaders, forcing Israelis back to the polls.