The Likud, the party of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has attacked this Monday Judge Noam Solberg, president of the Central Elections Committee, for having dismissed the hypothesis of electoral fraud, despite having pointed to possible foreign interference in the elections. Netanyahu’s far-right party maintains that such interference would have benefited the Arab party Raam, which is now in a decisive position to influence the makeup of Israel’s next Government.
"It is very puzzling that Judge Solberg states that these are very serious suspicions of foreign funding and, at the same time, determines in advance that these have no influence on the election results, even before the investigation has concluded," he denounced in a message released through the prime minister’s accounts.
The Likud stresses that the right-wing bloc it leads was left "4,612 votes short of a seat passing from Raam" to its coalition. "It would have completely changed the election results and the political map," the party emphasized, underscoring how close the count was and the impact that a single seat would have had.
For this reason, the party has reiterated its demand for a "swift and exhaustive investigation to preserve the cleanliness of the elections to the Knesset and the sovereignty of the people." In its view, only a thorough inquiry will allow doubts about possible external interference in the electoral process to be cleared up.
"Until the investigation concludes, a black shadow hangs over the election results in Israel," the Likud stated, which won the elections but faces major difficulties in putting together a governing majority, having fallen far short of the necessary threshold and lacking, for now, clear partners with whom to reach agreements.
The accusations of possible fraud in favor of Raam are based on earlier statements by Solberg himself, in which he mentioned the alleged intervention of foreign actors who would have tried to influence the electoral process and bribe voters to boost Arab parties.
All the same, the Central Elections Committee of Israel has flatly rejected the existence of widespread fraud, arguing that the integrity of the process remained firmly protected and that "there is no basis for alleging systematic violations". The body maintains that, despite suspicions of interference, the overall outcome of the ballot boxes was not altered in a structural way.