Posted on 03/18/2015 4:41:29 AM PDT by Dave346
When the 20th Knesset is sworn in on March 31, there will be quite a few quantitative changes in the legislature's makeup, according to Wednesday's results.
The official election results will come on Thursday, after all the votes by soldiers and others who vote away from their hometown are counted, so some of these numbers are subject to changes, though they're likely to be minor.
The 71.8 percent voter turnout is a 16-year peak, the highest since 1999, when it was 78.7%, according to research by the Israel Democracy Institute, and the number of parties that passed the 3.25% electoral threshold is 10, the smallest since the 1992 election.
Likud grew by 10 seats, more than any other party, followed by Zionist Union and The Joint List, which gained three each, when counting the parties in the previous Knesset that make up each one.
The parties that suffered the greatest losses are Yesh Atid, which lost eight seats, and Bayit Yehudi and Shas, which lost four each.
The new Knesset will have 38 new MKs: Nine each from Likud and Kulanu, eight each from Zionist Union and the Joint List, two each from Bayit Yehudi and Yisrael Beytenu, and one from Yesh Atid.
For the second time in a row, the Knesset broke its record for female parliamentarians, with 28, as opposed to 27 in the 19th Knesset. There will be eight female MKs in Zionist Union, six in Likud, four in Kulanu, three in Yesh Atid, two in Meretz and one each in Bayit Yehudi and Yisrael Beytenu. There are two lists in the Knesset with no women in them: Shas and UTJ.
The number of Arab MKs jumped from 12 to 17, in part because the parties making up the Joint List's numbers went up from 10 to 13, and also because Likud and Zionist Union each added an Arab MK.
The number of Orthodox MKs, including religious-Zionists and haredim, dropped from 39 to 28. The haredi parties lost a combined five seats, Bayit Yehudi lost five religious MKs and Yesh Atid lost one, and Hatnua's Elazar Stern, who ran in Yesh Atid, did not make it in to the Knesset. Likud gained two – Jacky Levy and Avraham Ngosa, in addition to Yuli Edelstein, Ze'ev Elkin and Tzipi Hotovely – and Zionist Union gained one - Revital Swed. Kulanu also has one new religious MK, Rachel Azaria.
I guess that’s ONE WAY to spin it...
This is only the first of the many attempts to describe a Bibi landslide as a win for the people who actually lost
“Yeah my car crash was a total loss, but at least I don’t have to make the car payments anymore so WIN!”
You can do that when your base is a flock of sheep ... and creeps with the IQ of tree slugs
do I need a '/s'
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