Gantz Still Optimistic: It’s Not Over Till It’s Over

YERUSHALAYIM
Benny Gantz, head of Blue and White Party, delivers his “victory speech” after the release of initial voting results, at the party headquarters in Tel Aviv, on Tuesday night. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)

Although his party is trailing the Likud by several thousand votes, and it may lose a projected seat by the time the final vote count is in, Blue and White’s Benny Gantz expressed optimism Wednesday morning that he might still be able to form a coalition – after giving a victory speech Tuesday night, in which he proclaimed that “the era of Binyamin Netanyahu is over.”

Speaking to reporters outside his Rosh Ha’ayin home Wednesday morning, Gantz said that “it’s a new morning, we are awakening to the real-time results as they come in, and we are awaiting them. We have achieved a historic accomplishment. There has never been a party that became so big in so short a time. The people spoke to us.” Despite the fact that his party was not the biggest, as the exit polls Tuesday night projected, Gantz said that “this is just the first morning. I will be here, contending, for the next 10 years.”

Speaking earlier to party faithful, Gantz said that patience was needed, as “the vote totals are not final. Although the sky appears gray, there are two reasons why they are not. The results are not final and electoral changes can be expected, allowing us to open political arrangements. And the results do not mar the great promise and hope that the Israeli people gave us. The voters asked for hope and we gave it to them. They wanted a different path and we provided it. We will not shirk from our responsibility to the public,” Gantz said.

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