Benjamin Netanyahu in lead after Israel vote

AFP :
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu inched towards reclaiming power on Wednesday after projected election results showed a majority government was within reach for the veteran right-winger, though the outlook could shift as ballots are counted, reports AFP.
If the exit polls hold, it would mark a dramatic comeback for Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, whose Likud party could be poised to form a coalition with its ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies and a rising extreme-right.
“We are close to a big victory,” Netanyahu told supporters at a rally in Jerusalem early Wednesday. “We don’t know the final results yet, but if the results are like the exit polls, I will form a national (right-wing) government.”
But his main rival, caretaker prime minister Yair Lapid, told his own supporters in Tel Aviv that ‘nothing is decided’, and that his centrist Yesh Atid party ‘will wait patiently… for the final results’.