Disarray as Israeli election rivals claim victory

ISRAEL: Israel faced deep political uncertainty on Wednesday after its election ended with clashing claims of victory by centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hawkish rival Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I won," read the headline of Israel's biggest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, next to photos of both.

It will be up to President Shimon Peres to decide, after hearing recommendations from political parties, whether to ask Livni or Netanyahu to try to form a coalition.

Israeli media said he would have no choice but to invite Netanyahu to lead a government if rightist parties, which hold a parliamentary majority, recommend the Likud leader over Livni.

But it would be the first time in Israel's 60-year history that the party that won the most parliamentary seats in an election did not get a chance to form the government. Nearly final results gave Livni's Kadima party 28 seats to 27 for Netanyahu's right-wing Likud in the 120-member Knesset. She said she would become prime minister and invited him to join a "unity government".

JERUSALEM, Reuters