Israel has voted – but the results will be messy. Here’s how its next government will be formed

Exit polls in Israel’s 2026 elections suggest Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition will be significantly smaller than the bloc of parties opposing him in the next Knesset (parliament). Arab parties also look likely to dramatically increase their representation.

Yet, with neither bloc likely to gain the 61 seats required for a majority, there is a long and complicated road ahead before we can say with certainty who will be Israel’s next Prime Minister.

Polls should always be treated with caution. In Israel this is especially true, for several reasons. First, too many unpredictable factors are at play in Israel’s electoral system – a nationwide proportional representation system with a high threshold (four seats) to enter the 120-seat Knesset.

Polling certain sectors, such as the ultra-Orthodox (13% of eligible voters) and Israel’s Arab citizens (18%), is very difficult due to operational and trust issues.

This year, pollsters were unable to map the views of an exceptionally high 618,000 new voters and an unprecedented 650,000 reservists and diplomats who vote in “double envelopes”, which are counted only after election day.

Finally, 810,000 of Israel’s 7.3 million eligible voters live abroad, but tens of thousands of them flew in especially to cast their votes this year.

With no camp likely able to form a majority, how will Israel’s next government be formed? What are the steps, and what political deals will be needed to build a coalition?

Step 1: endorsements

Ordinarily, Israel’s presidency is a largely symbolic position. But following elections, the president is tasked with granting a party leader the authority to negotiate forming the next government.

After the official election results are handed over to the president, the “recommendation parade” begins. In 2026, President Isaac Herzog will invite representatives of all parties that passed the minimum threshold (3.25% of valid votes) to his residence in Jerusalem to ask them to recommend a candidate to be the next prime minister. This could be Likud’s prime minister Netanyahu, his rival Gadi Eisenkot – former IDF chief of staff and leader of the Yashar! (translated as “straight” or “honest”) party. It could also be anyone else, or even no one. Netanyahu remains the head of the interim government, with some limitations, until a new government is formed. This could take months.

When consultations conclude, the president summons the person he judges has the best chance of forming a government, based on the combined number of Knesset seats held by the parties that recommended this candidate. At this stage, it looks like Eisenkot would get the first go at forming a government.

Other considerations the president can weigh are which candidate has received the most recommendations and who leads the biggest party (Netanyahu’s Likud is predicted to be the biggest, as at time at publication).

However, there have been cases where the head of a relatively small party received the mandate from the president and successfully formed a government. In 2021, it was Naftali Bennett who, despite winning only seven seats, became prime minister, even though Netanyahu’s Likud was the biggest party with 30 seats.

The president’s chosen candidate has 28 days, and an additional 14 days if they ask for it, to form a government. If they fail, the president repeats the process, asking parties to again recommend a candidate (same or different). If no government is formed after two such rounds and following a third 21-day-long round run by the Knesset, the country goes to the polls again.

Step 2: political negotiations

To form the government, a chosen candidate begins marathon deliberations with party representatives, aiming to form a consensus government platform. The magic number required is 61 Knesset members to join the coalition (a majority government), or fewer but with additional support from outside the coalition (a minority government).

At this stage, each party tries to maximise its “extortion” leverage to secure as much power as possible. For example, this could be in the number and importance of ministries, control over budgets, and funding for its constituents and affiliated institutions.

At the top of the list this time will be the draft bill addressing the exemption from army service of tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men.

The Eisenkot bloc unanimously agreed to ensure enlistment of those men into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). The Haredi parties (Shas, United Torah Judaism) will demand enshrining the exemption. The Netanyahu-aligned right-wing Religious Zionist party supports drafting the ultra-Orthodox, but through negotiating with the Haredi parties rather than forcing it on them.

Traditionally, Arab parties have stayed out of government and used coalition negotiations to gain budgets – for example, for infrastructure in Arab villages or for Arab municipalities with debts (due to crime, corruption and inefficiency).

But in 2026, the Ra’am party, led by Mansour Abbas, wants to join a no-Netanyahu coalition – as it did in 2021. This is why number two on its list is a Zionist, former senior police officer Yoav Segalovitch.

However, the party faces opposition from within Eisenkot’s bloc, as Zionist parties have stated they would not sit in the coalition with Arab parties.

Israel’s Palestinian policy is a thorny issue for Eisenkot’s bloc. While Netanyahu’s right-wing party partners encourage and facilitate settlement activity and aspire to annex the West Bank, the spectrum of views on this issue is wider on the other side.

For example, the Democrats (made of Labor and left-wing Meretz), headed by Yair Golan, support talks with the Palestinians on a Palestinian state. Yisrael Beytenu’s (Israel is our home) Avigdor Liberman, and Beyahad’s (Together) Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid reject Palestinian sovereignty as unacceptable after October 7.

Above all, the 2026 Israeli election is not about Netanyahu, but about the direction the Jewish state will take in the coming years. It may take a few more weeks before the answer is known.