Netanyahu’s Likud cries ‘stolen election’, Israeli police say no evidence backs claim

New Delhi: The Likud party of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accused Arab-led parties of stealing the country’s parliamentary election, but police have rejected the allegation, saying they have no investigative or intelligence evidence to support it. The dispute intensified on Thursday as authorities pursued a suspected vote-buying case and a separate inquiry into possible foreign interference while the final ballots were being counted.

The confrontation follows the Tuesday election, which left both Netanyahu’s alliance and the principal Jewish-led opposition bloc short of a parliamentary majority, as RNA Media had reported citing provisional projections. Arab-led parties were on course to secure a record combined 19 seats, potentially giving them considerable influence over efforts to form the next government.

In its statement alleging electoral fraud, issued on Wednesday, Likud demanded investigations by the police, the domestic security agency Shin Bet and the country’s central elections committee (CEC). It accused Arab parties of organizing bribery, intimidation, violence, forgery and other irregularities, but no publicly available evidence has established its claim that they systematically manipulated the national result.

Police subsequently rejected the broader allegation, saying election day had produced relatively few incidents concerning electoral integrity, including when compared with previous elections. They said there was no investigative or intelligence basis substantiating the claim that the election had been stolen.

What Likud alleges

Likud said it was submitting hundreds of witness accounts and items of purported evidence concerning polling stations in Arab communities. Its allegations included cash-filled envelopes containing Ra’am ballot slips, intimidation of polling officials, multiple people entering voting booths together, duplicate voting, discrepancies between envelopes and voter numbers, and prohibited voter-mobilization software.

The CEC confirmed that it had received Likud’s complaint and was examining it through the routine process used to review suspected irregularities and counting errors raised by political parties. That acknowledgement constituted acceptance of a complaint for examination, rather than endorsement of the party’s allegations.

The committee said parties had been informed of the review procedure on October 25, before polling, and invited to identify polling stations whose results warranted scrutiny. A committee official had also dismissed fraud claims in an interview before Likud issued its statement, according to the Times of Israel.

The mayor of Rahat, Talal al-Krenawi, rejected Likud’s accusations, describing them as an attempt to discredit Bedouin voters who had exercised their democratic rights. He said residents had voted properly and objected to their participation being portrayed as evidence of wrongdoing.

Vote-buying arrests under investigation

Alongside the dispute over the national result, police have been investigating a specific allegation of attempted bribery involving votes for Ra’am, the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas. Three Bedouin residents of southern Israel were arrested before polling opened on October 27, and the case was subsequently transferred to the Lahav 433 major crimes unit.

Police said searches uncovered cash-filled envelopes and other material suspected of being connected to the alleged offences. The CEC’s acting director-general, Din Livne, described the initial case as an isolated incident and said the suspects had not been apprehended near polling stations.

Ra’am denied wrongdoing and said its activists had been arrested near their homes before voting began. The party accused elements within the police of using the case to damage its standing and discourage Arab participation in the election.

In a further development on October 29, police announced four additional arrests in connection with the same suspected scheme. Ra’am identified the men as party activists and denied the allegations; their possible connection to the separate foreign-interference inquiry remained unclear.

Separate foreign-interference inquiry

The CEC chairman, Justice Noam Sohlberg, separately instructed the Shin Bet chief, David Zini, to investigate suspicions that foreign funding had been used improperly to influence the election. In his letter, Sohlberg said he could not attest to the substance of the suspicions and asked investigators to find evidence that would either substantiate or refute them.

Sohlberg requested any findings within a week, making the inquiry time-sensitive as the electoral process moved towards certification. His request for an investigation did not identify the countries allegedly involved or establish that an offence had occurred.

According to i24NEWS, Sohlberg clarified that the information underlying the suspicions had not come from a political party and that his intervention was not a response to Likud’s complaint. That distinction matters because the security inquiry does not, by itself, validate Likud’s broader allegation of a stolen election.

Israeli media subsequently reported suspicions involving possible funding from Qatar and Turkey, although those claims remained under investigation. The national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, called for the arrest of Arab party leaders suspected of involvement with Qatari funds, subject to a legal basis for detention, while the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, demanded their questioning.

Netanyahu also renewed his accusations on Thursday, describing the alleged affair as “Ra’amgate” and urging Zionist parties to rule out cooperation with Arab-led factions. His statement presented foreign interference and voter bribery as explanations for the outcome, although those allegations had not been established.

Arab parties pivotal to coalition arithmetic

Provisional projections placed Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious alliance on 53 seats and the Jewish-led opposition associated with his principal challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, on 48. The Joint List was projected to secure 12 seats and Ra’am seven, leaving neither main bloc independently able to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset.

Those figures give Arab-led parties potential influence, but their seats cannot automatically be counted as part of a governing alliance. Some Jewish opposition parties have resisted relying on their support, while the Arab factions themselves have expressed different preferences about participation in government.

The Joint List leader, Yousef Jabareen, indicated willingness to cooperate with an opposition-led administration to remove Netanyahu, while ruling out joining a coalition under prevailing circumstances, including the Gaza war and West Bank settlement policies. Ra’am, by contrast, has expressed interest in participating in the next coalition.

With final results still awaited, the immediate questions concern both the completion of the count and whether rival parties can negotiate a viable parliamentary majority. The fraud complaints and security investigations remain unresolved, while police’s stated assessment offers no support for Likud’s sweeping claim that Arab parties stole the election.