The acting director general of the Central Elections Committee of Israel, Dean Livne, has stepped in to address the allegations of massive fraud in the general elections held last Tuesday, defending that the process was carried out with full guarantees and that the integrity of the ballot boxes was strictly safeguarded, to the point that, in his words, "there is no basis for alleging systematic violations".
His intervention comes after Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the Arab parties this Wednesday of "stealing" the elections despite having been the most-voted list nationwide, and for that reason called on the Police and the domestic intelligence service (Shin Bet) to open a formal investigation.
In parallel, Shin Bet has clarified that the investigation already under way into possible foreign interference —focused on suspicions of funding from Qatar to organizations aimed at encouraging Arab voter turnout— has a "limited" scope, stressing that the leads arise from its own intelligence work and not from pressure or initiatives by political actors, according to the newspaper The Times of Israel.
Sources from both the security service and the electoral committee itself have assured the aforementioned newspaper that these inquiries will not alter the official timetable and that the validated results will be sent to President Isaac Herzog next November 4, ruling out that the findings of the investigation could lead to the annulment of the elections or a shift in the distribution of seats.
The committee has also made public the final results of the elections and has ratified the victory of Netanyahu's Likud party, which obtains 27 seats, followed by Yashar, headed by the main political rival, Gadi Eisenkot, with 21 seats. With this count, the governing bloc totals 53 seats, the opposition coalition gathers 48 and the Arab parties reach 19 representatives in Parliament.