Elections, Benjamin Netanyahu | featured news

Having created one surprise in pushing for an early general election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now delivered an even greater bomb-shell. The plan for early elections has been abandoned. Instead a new broadly-based governing coalition has been called into existence with the opposition centre-right Kadima party of Shaul Mofaz joining the government.

The two front-runners in the race to rule Israel made last-minute appeals to voters as polls opened Tuesday in a close general election whose outcome could determine the course of Mideast peace negotiations.

Israel's national election is likely to be a cliff-hanger, pollsters said on Monday, on the eve of a vote in which right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party had been forecast to emerge victorious.