It was 9.50 on election night. We’d arrived home about 30 minutes earlier from our friends’ barbecue (held indoors because of the weather) and I was in the middle of writing another instalment of my election blog.
As I waited for the imminent results of the TV exit polls, there was a flash of lightning, a huge thunderclap and a power cut.
The electricity came back on just before 10pm, but our internet connection wasn’t restored until this morning so instead of the election night blog I had been working on, here are a few morning after thoughts on the voting.
When I ask people how they voted, apart from a handful who supported Green/ Meimad, Labour and Yisrael Beitenu, the majority tell me they voted for Livni and Likud. Note the response: Livni, not Kadima, and Likud, not Bibi.
It is increasingly clear that people voted for Tzipi Livni as if we were back in the days when we had two votes: one for party and one for prime minister, and I’m willing to bet that a good proportion of those voters couldn’t name half the 28 or so Kadima candidates who will now sit in the Knesset.
On the other hand, despite Netanyahu’s apparent popularity in the polls, Likud supporters are precisely that: supporters of the Likud party. Many Likudniks I spoke to don’t even rate Bibi that highly, but there was absolutely no question of them voting for any other party. Similarly, some people have told me they voted Likud for the first time in this election “despite Bibi”, because they like party figures such as Moshe Yaalon, Benny Begin and Dan Meridor
No matter what shape the Knesset eventually takes, and even if she does not become prime minister, yesterday’s result was a triumph for Tzipi Livni and a vote against Bibi and Barak, both failures at the job already, who patronised her at every opportunity.