Updated: March 17, 2015, 4:20 PM
JERUSALEM (AP) — Voting in Israel’s national election has ended, with exit polls showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a virtual tie with a center-left challenger.
Exit polls conducted by the country’s three major TV stations late Tuesday gave mixed results, showing an extremely tight race between Netanyahu’s Likud Party and opposition leader Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union.
Two polls showed the parties deadlocked with 27 seats each, and a third gave Likud a slight lead of 28-27.
All showed the centrist newcomer Moshe Kahlon with enough seats to determine who will be the next prime minister. Kahlon, a Likud breakaway, has not said which side he would favor.
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Too early to say, of course, but Bibi may have scared enough voters to vote for him to offset the votes the moderate and progressive candidates got by citing the West Bank corruption issues and support for a negotiated settlement.