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Did Netanyahu celebrate his victory too early?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thought that he had won the elections, but now finds out that the road toward a majority government is long, if not impossible.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacts upon his arrival to address his supporters following the announcement of exit polls in Israel's election at his Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel March 3, 2020. REUTERS/Amir Cohen - RC20CF9CV5B1
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In the very early hours of March 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed his wildly cheering supporters about what appeared to be his biggest political victory ever. He had done it again. According to the exit polls aired at 10 p.m. local time on March 2, he was only a few tens of thousands of votes short of the 61 seats he needed for a Knesset majority. The feat that had appeared wholly impossible just weeks earlier was now happening in front of our eyes. “Tonight delivered a tremendous victory!” the jubilant prime minister declared. Netanyahu believed that as always, the real vote count would improve his Likud party’s showing even further and hand him the missing 61st seat. Even if the party fell short, at 60 seats, Netanyahu believed he could scrounge a defector from the ranks of the opposition that would allow him to form a government and lead it — while facing his criminal trial scheduled to start on March 17.

Less than two days later, Netanyahu was a political wreck. He found himself in the same situation as the late Shimon Peres, who went to sleep on May 29, 1996, as prime minister, confident in the election results projected by the exit polls that had him in the lead over his rival Netanyahu, only to wake up the next day as leader of the opposition. Netanyahu, in his first run for the premiership, had trounced him by a mere 30,000 votes.

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