CEC denies Likud request for briefing on suspected interference before election results approved

Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg rejected Likud’s demand on Monday for a briefing on suspected foreign interference before approving the election results, warning that the outgoing parliamentary majority has no authority to withhold their publication.

“Elections have results. Those results do not depend on the consent of the majority group in the outgoing Knesset, or its representatives,” he wrote to Likud representative and committee deputy chairman attorney Ilan Bombach.

Sohlberg said interpreting the committee’s powers as allowing it to block publication, and thereby extend the outgoing Knesset’s term, would contradict “fundamental democratic principles.”

Likud accused Arab parties of 'stealing' election

The exchange came after days of Likud allegations that Arab parties had “stolen” the election and its calls on other parties not to rely on Arab representatives to form a government or replace the Knesset speaker. Police had said they had no investigative or intelligence support for the broader stolen-election claims. 

The completed count left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc with 53 seats, short of a parliamentary majority. Official results are scheduled to be published and submitted to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday.

Bombach sought an urgent meeting of the committee’s leadership, with Shin Bet Director David Zini participating, before Wednesday’s session. He demanded details of the suspicions, investigative steps and findings, arguing that the seriousness of the allegations and uncertainty about their scope prevented members from approving publication “as though nothing had happened.”

He said the committee’s leadership would fail in its duties if it approved the results without first receiving the information. Members could receive classified material and sign confidentiality undertakings, he argued, noting that he held a high security clearance.

Sohlberg rejected both the demand for information and the premise that the investigation could give committee members grounds to withhold publication.