Netanyahu's bloc won more seats than Eisenkot's. Traders now think Eisenkot is the one who ends up as prime minister.

Israel's election left both camps short of 61 seats, and Netanyahu's side is ahead on the count. Yet the chance that Gadi Eisenkot becomes the next prime minister has doubled in a week, which tells you where the real contest lies.

Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats in Israel's 27 October election. Gadi Eisenkot's won 48. Yet Polymarket traders put Eisenkot's chance of becoming the next prime minister at 66% as of 6 November, up 32 points in a week, and Netanyahu's at 20%, down 22 points.

Nobody has 61 of the 120 seats. The gap between the seat count and the price is the story, and it is explained less by arithmetic than by who gets the first try, who is left to blame for a second election, and what counts as winning.

The count that settled nothing

The Central Elections Committee certified the results on 4 November after reviewing 9,069 polling stations and finding no irregularities that changed the outcome. Its chair, Justice Noam Sohlberg, warned that people casting doubt on the vote pose "a real danger" to Israel's democracy. Netanyahu and his allies had claimed, without evidence, that the election was "stolen".

President Isaac Herzog accepted the results the next day. "The elections are over. Now is the time to face reality," he said, and urged both camps to compromise because "not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled."

The Arab parties, Ra'am and the Joint List, won a record 19 seats between them. They are expected to back Eisenkot, but both leading camps have ruled out governing with them. Netanyahu wrote that "the public in Israel does not want a government that depends on Ra'am and the Joint List."

Why the smaller bloc has the better hand

Herzog gives the first chance to form a government to the candidate he judges likeliest to succeed. Israeli media expect that to be Eisenkot, on about 48 recommendations from party leaders to Netanyahu's 46. The gap is United Torah Judaism: four of its seven seats are not recommending either man, which cuts Netanyahu's tally below his 53. Ra'am's expected backing would lift Eisenkot to 56, according to Ynet.

The holder of the mandate has 28 days, extendable by 14. A second candidate then gets 28 days, and a third can follow for 14. If no one wins a confidence vote, the Knesset dissolves and Israel returns to the polls within 90 days. Herzog has until about 11 November to name his pick, and the new Knesset is sworn in on 10 November.

That sequence gives Eisenkot the first move but not a majority. Netanyahu's route is harder still: his camp has no obvious partners to find eight more seats. Former Knesset member Dov Lipman suggested Eisenkot might invite Likud to join a government under his leadership, which Likud would probably reject. Israel has no precedent for a minority government propped up from outside by Arab parties straight after an election, though analysts call it theoretically possible. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman have reportedly endorsed Eisenkot, but both are reportedly unlikely to join a government that relies on the Joint List.

What the price actually asks

The Eisenkot question is not "who wins the most seats" or "who gets the mandate". It asks who is next officially appointed and sworn in as prime minister. A caretaker or interim premier does not count, so Netanyahu can stay in office through weeks of talks without that counting toward his side. If nobody is sworn in by 31 December 2027, the answer is "Other", not any named candidate.

Two details need care. The question's listed end date, 28 October, is the date of the election, not a deadline for the outcome; it is stale and the question remains open. And the 66% does not mean traders expect Eisenkot to command a majority. They are pricing a long process in which he starts first and Netanyahu has fewer places to find votes.

Netanyahu's 20% is still far from nothing. It is roughly a one-in-five chance, and his camp is the larger bloc. It would take a split in the opposing alliance, a Likud-led deal with parties now backing Eisenkot, or a second election that favours him. Lieberman, who is in Eisenkot's camp, stands at 7.8% on $5.2mn of trading, up 5.3 points in a week, a small but notable price for a compromise figure emerging from a stalemate.

The Eisenkot and Netanyahu prices together sum to about 86%. The rest is Lieberman and a long tail of other outcomes, including no one being sworn in at all.

Why the market could be wrong

The strongest case for Netanyahu is the arithmetic. His bloc has five more seats than Eisenkot's. If Eisenkot's mandate fails, Herzog can give the task to another Knesset member, and a rotation deal like the 1984 to 1988 Likud-Labor arrangement has been floated by one academic, Gideon Rahat, as a possible model. Less money has been traded on Eisenkot ($9.2mn) than on Netanyahu ($34.0mn), though both are deep enough to take seriously.

There is also a plain political risk: Eisenkot has the first try but the Arab parties he would depend on are those both camps refuse to sit with. If that holds, the likeliest result of his mandate is failure, and a second election early next year.

The security backdrop matters too. Traders put the chance that the ceasefire between Israel and Iran lasts through 7 November at 95% and through 15 November at 77% (both 6 November), so a new government would inherit a truce they expect to hold for weeks but not months. They give a 2.7% chance that the election is annulled, which suggests traders give Netanyahu's fraud claims almost no chance of changing the result.

What it means for markets, business and politics

• Politics: The next fortnight is about Herzog's choice and whether Eisenkot can get Likud or the Arab parties to move. A mandate that fails would not hand Netanyahu a win; it would more likely end in a second election.
• Markets: A formation process that can run up to 42 days, and longer if a second candidate is tried, points to delayed decisions rather than a change of direction.
• Geopolitics: A hold on the Iran truce through mid-November is priced as likely, but with a 23% chance of it breaking by 15 November, any new government will take office in a fragile security situation.
• Business: The mandate holder has up to 42 days, so companies planning around Israeli procurement, defence contracts or tax changes face the status quo into mid-December at least.

What to watch

• Herzog's choice of who gets the mandate, due by about 11 November.
• Whether UTJ, Ra'am and the Joint List formally recommend a candidate, and whether Likud refuses to join an Eisenkot-led government.
• The ceasefire date of 15 November.

The seat count says Netanyahu is ahead. The sequence says it is Eisenkot's turn first, and in Israeli coalition politics that has often mattered more.