Mansour Abbas claims Ra’am has won enough votes to enter Knesset

Mansour Abbas of the conservative Islamic party Ra’am tells his supporters the party has won more than enough votes to make it into the Knesset. “The exit polls said we didn’t make it, but we did ultimately cross the threshold,” he says.

Sources in his party tell Haaretz it has won at least 142,000 votes. Other sources put the number at 160,000, Channel 12 says.

Should the party indeed cross the 3.25% support threshold, its four resultant seats would significantly shake up the political map. The party has expressed a willingness to work with Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, though Netanyahu has said he will not include it in his coalition or even rely on its outside support for a majority.

Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

It is impossible to know how many votes will be needed to enter the Knesset as it depends on turnout, but with fewer people voting in this election than the last few, 142,000 votes may be enough to reach 3.25%.

All three major exit polls show the party falling short of the Knesset. Kan reports that its exit poll shows the party at around 2.4%.