Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Israel Votes

Exit Polls

From Vital Perspective, these exit polls are subject to change, but probably not by much.

 TV 10  TV 2  TV 1
Kadima (Moderate) 31 32 29
Labor (Left) 20 22 22
Likud (Right) 12 11 11
Yisrael Beitenu (Right) 12 13 14
Shas (Sephardic) 11 10 11
NRP/NU (Religious) 8 9 8
UTJ (Religious) 6 5 6
Meretz (Left) 5 5 5
Gil (Senior Citizens) 7 6 8
Khadash (Arab Communist) 3 2 2
Balad (Arab) 2 2 
Ram Tal (Arab) 3 3 4

The Jerusalem Post noted that the 63.2% voter turnout was the lowest in years:

only 63.2 percent of Israel’s 5,014,622 eligible voters had turned out at Israel’s 8,280 polling stations to cast their ballots. The figure is the lowest in Israeli elections history, with the next-lowest turnout of 67.8% in the 2003 elections.

Throughout the day, voter turnout at times lagged as much as 12% behind percentages measured in the 2003 elections.

Of course, with the predicted violence from the Palestinian Jihadists, voter confidence may have been a bit shaky, don't you think?


A note from commenter David on our previous Israeli elections post:

Having just voted in Jerusalem, I read your post.

It is not suicidal shopping. It is an insistence on living normally, despite the threats. I have been in this country since the Yom Kippur War and the worst time I can remember was about three years ago - right before operation “defensive wall”. People stopped going to public spaces. The coffee shops and restaurants were empty(we are a coffee shop oriented culture) as were the malls and main streets. It was scary. It was depressing.

Then, Arik Sharon got it together militarily, took the war to the terrorists, started building the wall/fence and we turned back the terrorist onslaught. We reoccupied our public places. In essence, we won that (chapter of) the war. Ever since, the coffee shops and other public spaces have been full and, I hope, we will not be scared out of them again.

Living normally (and, I should note, well: the quality of the coffee and food in those coffee shops leaves Starbucks in the dust)is the best revenge in the face of terrorism.

2 comments:

John Sobieski said...

I think the turnout is low because the fence and the IDF has greatly reduced terror bombings. Such lulls induce complacency. Plus the wearing down effect of lowgrade war which has been going on since the 67 war. I am all for finishing the wall, and saying screw you barbarians. You attack us, we will return with a 100 times the destruction. We'll just have to wait for that first really deadly rocket or devastating bomber who gets through. It's destiny. Just like Europe has a destiny. How they choose to react will be historic dates, famous of infamous.

Freedom Fighter said...

I don't think the low turnout was because of complacency as much as it was because the Israeli public simply didn't like the choices given them by the major parties.

Kadima only got 23% of the vote!

Actually, I see this election as a positive development...proof that the majority of Israelis have given up on the fiction of peace with the Palestinians.J O S H U A P U N D I T: Treading Water: The Israeli elections

They still cling to the fable of disengagement...but that will pass.

The Pals already supplied an answer by launching the first Iran supplied Katyusha missle from Gaza at Ashkelon. And they won't miss forever.