These can change – I’ve seen it, it happens. But this is the most current spread for now.

What I don’t get is: Livni had the most last time too – but couldn’t form the coalition and that’s what got us to today. So, now what? According to Jameel:

10:27 PM What happens next: [that’s 3:27EST]

1. Final Results to be announced by 6 AM [11pmEST]

2. President Shimon Peres will then go from party to party and ask if they will form a government with the leader of the largest party (and if not, which leader would they follow).

3. Assuming it’s Livni — she will try to woo Lieberman into her government, meaning that the left would have a majority government.

4. If Lieberman holds strong, then the second largest party leader (Netanyahu) will be asked to form a government — and since the Rightwing is larger than the left, its likely he’ll succeed.

What’s this mean to anyone who hasn’t studied these coalition gov’ts? Basically, there’s a somewhat historic realignment since Labor is coming in with fewer seats than Yisrael Beiteinu. Typically, Likud was cast as the right wing, Labor as the left, Kadimah – a relatively new party created by Ariel Sharon (and Ehud Olmert’s party) – somewhere between the two but many believed closer to being dovish, and now Yisrael Beiteinu as far right.

I know little about YB other than what I’ve read in the last few days. Again, the idea of direct representational government is a lovely thing in theory, but in practice, I don’t know – not so much maybe. Pretty messy actually – in my estimation.

We’ll know more over the next few hours.

By the way, Jameel, the creator of the chart, put “Right” in blue and “Left” in red – interesting, since here in the USA, we do it the other way.