Israelis Vote for the Future: Israelis Vote for Dramatic Change As They Elect a New Prime Minister

Israelis voted for dramatic change this week as they elected a new prime minister and a very different Knesset.

Ehud Barak, a former army chief of staff, was overwhelmingly elected the new prime minister of Israel, returning the Labor Party to power.

Barak received 58.5 percent of the vote to 41.5 percent for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a poll by Israel’s Channel 1 Television.

“I’m happy,” Barak, known as a man of few words, said in Beersheba shortly after the polls closed.

In his concession speech 30 minutes after the polls closed, Netanyahu stunned his supporters by resigning as head of the Likud Party.

In separate elections for the Knesset, Israelis also sent a strong message that they wanted change.

The composition of the newly elected 15th Knesset may enable Barak to forge a governing coalition based on centrist and leftist parties.

The breakdown of the Knesset seats is not yet certain. But exit polls cited the following preliminary results:

One Israel, the Labor Party coalition, will have between 29 and 33 seats, compared with Labor’s 34 in the outgoing Knesset.

Likud will have 18 or 19 seats, a drop of 13 or 14 seats from the outgoing Knesset;

Shas, the fervently Orthodox party, is poised to increase its Knesset representation from 10 seats to 14 or 15;

Meretz Party, which has nine seats in the outgoing Knesset, will have nine or 10;

Shinui, a new party that says all fervently Orthodox parties should be kept out of the next government, will have six seats in the new Knesset;

The Center Party, the new grouping headed by Yitzhak Mordechai, who dropped out of the race for prime minister a day before elections, will have five or six seats;

Yisrael Ba’Aliyah, the immigrants rights party headed by Natan Sharansky, was estimated to have won six or seven seats. It has seven in the outgoing Knesset;

The Arab parties together will have six or seven seats;

The National Religious Party will have five or six seats, compared to nine in the outgoing Knesset; and

The Pnina Rosenblum Party, named for its founder, a cosmetics magnate, will get two seats.

According to the exit poll by Channel 1, the combined seats of One Israel, the Center Party, Yisrael Ba’Aliyah, Shinui, Meretz and Pnina Rosenblum — 61 in all — could would enable Barak to create a coalition that excludes the religious parties.

Given the dimensions of his election defeat, it was not long before Netanyahu appeared before the cameras to acknowledge the voters’ decision.

To cries of disbelief from his supporters, Netanyahu resigned as the Likud leader when he conceded the election.

“I have a great deal still to contribute to our state,” he said. “But the time has come for me to be with my family and to take some time to decide my future.”

He also adopted a conciliatory note in his speech, saying that the “tempest of the elections is passing. We have to quiet down. We have to unify.”

In the wake of Netanyahu’s announcement, Likud officials said it is time to revitalize the party.

“This is a very sad day for the national camp,” said outgoing Communications Minister Limor Livnat. “We must rehabilitate the Likud movement at the head of the national camp, to call on all members to come home.”

The election results closed a five-month campaign that had been rife with social and ethnic tensions — between religious and secular Jews, and Israelis of Sephardi background and Russian immigrants.

Barak’s One Israel Knesset list includes the Gesher Party, a move aimed at including Sephardim under the coalition banner, and the moderate religious movement Meimad. During the campaign, he had pledged to try to unify the rifts tearing at the fabric of Israeli life.

Members of his Labor party reiterated their call to seek a broad-based coalition.

“We decided to bridge gaps. The fact that we’re in Kiryat Shmona tonight, that Barak is in Beersheba, speaks for our effort to unite,” said Knesset member Shlomo Ben-Ami at the party’s main election gathering in the northern town. “We are not ruling out any group, not the religious, not the settlers.”

In Tel Aviv, thousands of jubilant Israelis celebrated Barak’s victory at Rabin Square, where Labor Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated four years ago by Yigal Amir, a right-wing student opposed to any territorial concession to the Palestinians.