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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Seating for Knesset |
| 2009-02-13 |
| JERUSALEM - Israel's centrist Kadima party, led by Tzipi Livni, kept its tight lead over the rightist Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu in this week's general election, according to final results released on Thursday. The official results, released after military and overseas votes were counted, gave Kadima 28 seats in the 120-member parliament and Likud 27 seats. These figures were in line with preliminary results released after Tuesday's election, which also gave most of the remaining seats to right-wing parties. Principal among those was Yisrael Beitenu of Avigdor Lieberman, which was confirmed as having taken 15 seats. Labour, which has headed many Israeli coalitions, slipped into fourth place with 13. The ultra-Orthodox Shas took 11 seats and United Torah Judaism five. Extreme right National Union won four seats, Arab party Ram Tal four, the Arab communist party Hadash four, the left-wing Meretz three, extreme-right Jewish Home three and another Arab party, Balad, three. |
| Posted by:Steve White |