Israeli candidates take the final straight to ask for votes

Othe candidates of the main parties competing for today's legislative elections in Israel take advantage of the last hours of the opening of the polls to call for vote on social media and the streets of the country.

In Israel, the law does not prohibit campaign acts day of the elections, with candidates taking advantage all day to appeal to the Israeli vote, in a suffrage in which there has been a record participation, which exceeded 74% to an hour of closing the polls (22:00 local, 20:00 Lisbon).

The Prime Minister and leader of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, has mainly used social media to campaign. Today is no exception.

In his account on platform X (formerly Twitter), the Prime Minister published more than 20 messages since the opening of the polls, focusing mainly on fear, given the scenario a possible presence of Arab parties in a future government.

Netanyahu’s public appearances have been scarce in this election campaign and have mainly focused on social media communication, focused on Iran’s threat and a possible attack from that country.

Already his main rival and one of the favorites to win the suffrage, Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party!, chose to travel the country on election day to ask personally the Israelis for their vote.

Eisenkot began in the Israeli settlements closest to the Gaza border, followed by other coastal settlements, namely the town of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, where he visited his son's grave, killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza in December 2023.

Already Yair Golan, leader of the center-left Democratic coalition, published a video of the site where a far-right supporter of Itamar Ben Gvir beat a volunteer of his campaign, denouncing violence.

Ben Gvir, Minister of Government led by Netanyahu, published videos in front of a prison, visited a city of Palestinian population, to alert the Arab vote, and walked door-to-door in Tel Aviv buildings, appealing to the vote.

Another member of the Netanyahu Government, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also walked the streets asking for the vote, also warning the very high participation rates in Arab majority locations and in “strong support to the left” areas.

“ The last hours of campaigning are of crucial importance”, warned that ultranationalist politician.

According to the Israeli Central Electoral Commission, the voter turnout rate was 73.3% close to 21:00 locals (19:00 in Lisbon), which was a substantial increase compared to that recorded during the same election period in 2022.

In these elections, Netanyahu plays his stay in power after four years marked by Hamas's terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, in front of a heterogeneous bloc of forces that, led by Eisenkot, seeks to overthrow him and put an end to the government more to the right than Israel had since his creation in 1948.