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Netanyahu hurries for larger turnout for Likud to suppress rivals

Xinhua, March 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged his supporters on Tuesday afternoon to go out and vote in the country's parliamentary elections, fearing a major turnout of voters for the center-left and Arab parties.

On a video posted on his Facebook page, Netanyahu told his supporters that big masses of Arab voters are going out to vote.

The only way to "save the right-wing rule" is going to the poll stations and narrowing the gap between his Likud party and the Zionist Union, he said.

Polls from last week showed the center-left Zionist Union party was leading by four seats over the Likud party.

Other right-wing politicians, including head of the nationalist Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett, also urged their supporters to vote amid the apparent substantial voting of Israeli Arabs.

Shelly Yachimovich, a lawmaker from the Zionist Union, denounced Netanyahu's statements as "racist."

"No Western leader would dare utter such a racist comment. Imagine a prime minister/president in any democracy who would warn his rule is in jeopardy because black voters are going to the polls," she said on her Facebook page.

"Netanyahu is worried that Israeli citizens are moving in droves to the ballots and simply want to topple him," she added.

Arabs constitute 20 percent of Israel's population. In 2013, only 56 percent of Arabs eligible to vote turned out in the elections. Pundits assume that the rate may rise to 70 percent in this year's election with the Joint Arab List in the race.

Three Arab parties and one Arab-Jewish party decided to run under a joint list in Tuesday's election after the Israeli government raised the electoral threshold last year to 3.25 percent of the votes.

Israelis went to the polls Tuesday to elect the 120-member parliament. According to the Central Election Committee, 36.7 percent of the 5.8 million Israelis eligible to vote have cast their ballots as of 2 p.m. local time (1200 GMT).

Three major Israeli television stations will release the results of their exit polls at 10 p.m. local time (2000 GMT) when the polling stations close. Endit