Likud officials take wait-and-see approach, MKs bolt party event

Likud officials react to the exit polls showing that the party may come in just behind its Blue and White rivals and not be able to form a coalition without Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu by insisting that conclusions should not be drawn until the final results are in.

“We saw this in 2009, 2015 and earlier this year. The exit polls always give us less than we actually get,” Eli Hazan, Likud’s head of foreign relations, says.

“There is no point starting to work out a coalition based on these numbers as they will change,” he insists.

Likud spokesperson Rachel Broyde similarly says that “these are just exit polls, let’s see if they hold,” but admits that if they do, “it looks like we can’t form a coalition.”

“Even according to these exit polls, which could change, a left-wing coalition includes the Arab parties,” Broyde told The Times of Israel.

“That’s their government?” she says, “Let’s wait and see.”

The several Likud MKs who were in the nearly empty hall where the party is holding its results event fled immediately after the exit polls were released, refusing to answer questions on their way out.

— Raoul Wootliff