Likud Party leader Binyamin Netanyahu declared that he would be Israel's next
prime minister and promised to begin collation talks to form a new government with the parties from the national
camp as early as Wednesday.
[IMG]http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?blobcol=urlimage&blobheader=image%2Fjpeg&blobheadername1=Cache-Control&blobheadervalue1=max-age%3D420&blobkey=id&blobtable=JPImage&blobwhere=1233304745085&cachecontrol=5%3A 0%3A0+*%2F*%2F*&ssbinary=true[/IMG] Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu following the election on Tuesday.
Photo: AP
"With God's help I will stand at the head of the next government," he told the supporters who had waited for close to three hours for him speak to them at a large hanger in Tel Aviv.
Undeterred by
exit polls which showed that his party placed second behind Kadima in Tuesday's elections, Netanyahu said, that he had already spoken with party leaders in the
national camp "and we agreed to begin [coalition] discussions tomorrow."
He smiled as he gave a victory rather than a concession speech close to 1 a.m. He was greeted by large cheers from the crowd. They clapped their hands and yelled out, "here comes the next prime minister."
Netanyahu told them that while the true elections results had yet to be calculated but that even if they exactly replicate the exit polls, "there is no doubt about their meaning."
"The real question is not what do the polls say, but how do they translate into reality," he said. The national camp headed by the Likud party had clearly won because it is the party that is in the position to form a coalition, he said.
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