Photo credit: PBS
The head of Israel’s elections commission has said the results of the country’s general election would still stand even if claims of foreign interference were substantiated.
Al Jazeera reports that the head of the Central Elections Committee, Noam Sohlberg, said in a video on Sunday that, “Our position is that even if the suspicions are substantiated, this would not undermine the integrity of the electoral process or the election results as a whole.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party had questioned the results after saying, without providing evidence, that Arab-led parties, which made significant gains in Tuesday’s elections, “stole” the vote and accepted funding from Qatar to do it.
Qatar has rejected the allegations, calling it a disinformation campaign.
Also on Sunday, Israeli police released two of the three political activists arrested before Tuesday’s polls opened. They were carrying envelopes of cash, allegedly to bribe voters, police said.
One was released on unspecified conditions, while the other was to remain on house arrest.
Police said the suspects were connected to the Arab-led Ra’am party, which won eight seats.
Main opposition leader Eisenkot on Sunday accused Netanyahu of launching an “orchestrated and organized campaign to delegitimize the results”.
Eisenkot had previously ruled out forming a coalition with Arab parties, but a deadlock in Tuesday’s elections means siding with the parties could help him form a government.
Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in Tuesday’s elections, while the opposition bloc, led by Gadi Eisenkot, won 48, meaning neither side can form a government in Israel’s 120-seat parliament alone.
