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Monday, November 2, 2026
Likud demands to delay certification of election results amid foreign interference probe; Sohlberg refuses
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is trying to delay the certification of the official election results, as the party continues to push its claim that the vote was “stolen” by non-Zionist Arab parties.
The demand to hold off on certifying the results comes amid an investigation into suspicions of foreign interference in the October 27 election, which the Central Election Committee (CEC) has stressed are not significant enough to alter the outcome of the vote.
Earlier today, Likud lawyer and CEC member, Ilan Bombach, wrote to the committee’s chair, Justice Noam Sohlberg, to request an urgent meeting of the committee’s leadership before the vote is certified, to ensure that all members are caught up on the “serious suspicions of foreign interference.”
“The seriousness of the suspicions, combined with the lack of clarity regarding their nature and scope, do not allow for the presidency and the Central Election Committee to publish the certified results, as if nothing has happened,” Bombach wrote to Sohlberg, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Channel 12.
Sohlberg rejects Bombach’s request to put off certifying the results — which must be done no later than eight days after the election — writing in response that “the Central Election Committee has no authority to withhold the certification of the results, nor does the committee have the authority to intervene in an ongoing investigation.”
Meanwhile, CEC member MK Vladimir Beliak responds to Bombach’s request for an urgent meeting of the committee’s leadership by pointing out that said meeting is already scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m., and has been on the calendar since Friday.
In response to Likud’s push to delay the vote certification, Yashar chair Gadi Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu and his party of a “destructive and violent campaign of delegitimization against the election results.
These efforts, Eisenkot says, are “a direct assault on Israeli democracy” and proof of the “grave danger posed by the continued rule of Likud and Netanyahu.”
“This current offensive is the last resort of those who understand the magnitude of the defeat they have suffered,” says Eisenkot.
Likud responds by claiming that Eisenkot is trying to stop “the truth from coming to light regarding the grave suspicions…concerning the contamination of the Israeli election by foreign elements.”
The Times of Israel Community.