Extra vote counting underway in Israel as parties jockey for power

Tel Aviv - Final ballots in the Israeli elections were being counted Thursday from soldiers, diplomats, prison inmates and hospital patients, whose votes are always tallied after the others. Media reports said the additional ballots might give an extra seat to the hardline Likud party of Benjamin Netanyahu, thus tying it with Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima party, which after 99 per cent of the votes had been counted Wednesday emerged as the largest party in parliament, with a one seat advantage over the Likud, 28-27. Because of Israel's proportional representation system, the additional votes could also change the outcome of the election for other parties, who could see themselves with fewer or more seats than announced on Wednesday. Counting the additional votes is expected to be completed later Thursday, and the final results of the election released in the evening or late at night. Likud and Kadima officials meanwhile continued their efforts to get backing from other parties ahead of consultations President Shimon Peres must hold with all factions in parliament before nominating a legislator to for a new government. Although by law the president can tap any legislator for the post, he traditionally gives the nod to the party leader with the best chance of forming a coalition. Both Livni and Netanyahu declared victory in Tuesday's election, but the right-wing block of parties, which the Likud heads, emerged with 65 seats in the 120-seat lower house, the Knesset, giving Netanyahu an edge over Livni in the coalition race. Israel Radio said Thursday afternoon that 50 legislators have said they will recommend Netanyahu be charged with forming the next government, as opposed to only 28 - the Kadima legislators - who want Livni. But Livni was still trying to put together a coalition and was putting out feelers to the hawkish Yisrael Beteinu party, whose 15 seats make it a key player in any future coalition, and to two ultra- Orthodox parties who together have 16 seats. Should all three parties agree to sit with her in a coalition, she will still be short of the necessary 61 seats needed as a minimum for a coalition, and will have to tempt on board the Labour Party, which won only 13 seats. But the centre-left Labour may be loathe to sit in the same coalition as Yisrael Beteinu, whose leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is an unabashed hawk whose election campaign was fueled by his anti-Arab rhetoric. Livni may also find her own credibility slipping if she forms a coalition with the ultra-Orthodox. Her previous attempt to set up a government, after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned in September, failed in no small part due to her refusal to give in to the financial demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties. Should she do so now, in order to block Netanyahu from forming a coalition, she will have a heard time explaining her campaign slogan of a 'new style of politics' to her voters. Netanyahu, for his part, is believed to be hesitant to enter into a narrow-based coalition dependent on the support of small, ultra- right and ultra-nationalist factions. According to the Ha'aretz daily Thursday, he prefers a unity government with Kadima and to this end is prepared to offer it two of the four most senior cabinet portfolios - defence and foreign affairs - and to give the party the same number of ministers as the Likud would have. Senior Kadima figure Haim Ramon said he would prefer the party head for the opposition if Netanyahu first formed a government from the right-wing wing block and the ultra-Orthodox, and only then asked Kadima to join. 'I will recommend to my colleagues not to be part of a government in which we are leftovers but rather to fulfill our role in the opposition and act to change the system of government,' he told Israel Radio. 'I believe that a government of the extreme right wing will not last. Then there will be elections in a year to a year-and-a-half,' he said.