Police Reject Likud Fraud Claims Over Lack of Proof: Report
(MENAFN) Police have turned up nothing to back the election-fraud accusations leveled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, and the Central Elections Committee currently sees no reason to doubt the integrity of the vote, an Israeli daily newspaper reported late Wednesday.
Relying on unnamed sources, the paper said the committee’s assessment runs counter to Likud’s claims of fraud at polling stations in Arab communities. Police, too, found no evidence to substantiate the allegations, the report said.
Earlier Wednesday, Likud charged that Arab parties had “stolen” the election through bribery, intimidation, violence, forgery and the use of prohibited software to drive voter turnout. It further accused those parties of backing terrorism and seeking the destruction of the Jewish state.
Likud said it was handing over “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence” to police, the Shin Bet domestic security agency and the election committee, and demanded an investigation.
The committee acknowledged receiving Likud’s complaint and said it was reviewing it as part of its routine handling of election-integrity complaints from every party.
The accusations surfaced as the predominantly Arab parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, were projected to win a record combined 19 seats, leaving both Netanyahu’s bloc and its chief rival short of a governing majority.
On Tuesday, the election committee said it had detected no signs of systematic ballot tampering and was dealing with individual reports immediately, according to an English-language Israeli news outlet.
The numbers: With nearly 90% of ballots counted, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to take 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, against 48 for the bloc headed by Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot. Neither camp had reached the 61 seats needed to form a majority.
The tallies remain provisional. Hundreds of thousands of “double-envelope” ballots, including those cast by soldiers and diplomats, have yet to be counted.
Relying on unnamed sources, the paper said the committee’s assessment runs counter to Likud’s claims of fraud at polling stations in Arab communities. Police, too, found no evidence to substantiate the allegations, the report said.
Earlier Wednesday, Likud charged that Arab parties had “stolen” the election through bribery, intimidation, violence, forgery and the use of prohibited software to drive voter turnout. It further accused those parties of backing terrorism and seeking the destruction of the Jewish state.
Likud said it was handing over “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence” to police, the Shin Bet domestic security agency and the election committee, and demanded an investigation.
The committee acknowledged receiving Likud’s complaint and said it was reviewing it as part of its routine handling of election-integrity complaints from every party.
The accusations surfaced as the predominantly Arab parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, were projected to win a record combined 19 seats, leaving both Netanyahu’s bloc and its chief rival short of a governing majority.
On Tuesday, the election committee said it had detected no signs of systematic ballot tampering and was dealing with individual reports immediately, according to an English-language Israeli news outlet.
The numbers: With nearly 90% of ballots counted, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to take 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, against 48 for the bloc headed by Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot. Neither camp had reached the 61 seats needed to form a majority.
The tallies remain provisional. Hundreds of thousands of “double-envelope” ballots, including those cast by soldiers and diplomats, have yet to be counted.
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