March Madness results

Now that all is said and done in the Knesset elections, and machinations are afoot to determine which parties will be able to form a coalition (and surprisingly, it's not 100% determined that Ehud Olmert will be the next Prime Minister), we're ready to announce the results of the Israeli election March Madness pool!

The latest news: Due to voting irregularities in Arab villages in northern Israel, one seat will shift from Labor to the United Arab List. But that won't affect the March Madness standings.

The final Knesset results:

1. Kadima 29
2. Labor 19
   
3. Shas 12
4. Likud 12
5. Yisrael Beiteinu 11
6. National Union - NRP 9
7. Gil 7
8. United Torah Judaism 6
9. Meretz 5
10. United Arab List 4
    
11. Hadash 3
12. Balad 3
13. Greens
14. Aleh Yarok (Green Leaf)
15. Hayil (Jewish National Front)
    
16. Tafnit
17. Atid Echad
18. Hetz
19. Shinui
20. Tzedek Lakol (Men's Rights)
21. Da'am (Organization for Democratic Action)
22. Herut
23. Brit Olam
24. Halev (Party for the Struggle with the Banks)
25. Lev
26. Tzomet
27. Lechem
28. New Zionism
29. Oz La'aniyim (Strength to the Poor)
30. National Arab Party
31. Leeder

Let's start with the tiebreaker questions. Even though no ties had to be broken, these are still amusing diversions. Congratulations to Yitzchak Bleaman and Shmuel Cahn, both of whom correctly predicted that the Greens would come closest to winning seats in the Knesset, without meeting the threshold. In fact, if the election threshold had not been raised this year from 1.5% to 2%, the Greens would have been elected to the Knesset. Maybe next time. Congratulations also to JXG, who correctly predicted that the Leeder party would end up in last place. Leeder got 580 votes.

Now, the overall standings. Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter!

In third place, Ariel Schachter, whose predictions were, in some cases, right on the mark, including exactly 11 for Yisrael Beiteinu and 5 for Meretz.

In second place, Michael Rosenberg, who predicted the fall of Likud and the rise of Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas, correctly predicting 12 seats for both Likud and Shas.

And the winner is......

Benjamin Fleischer, of the blogs Politics, Compassion, and Justice and Ask the Rebbe, who correctly predicted 111 out of the 120 Knesset seats! It was a close contest all around, but what put Benjamin over the edge is that he was the only contestant to predict that Gil (the Pensioners' Party) would make it into the Knesset (though many people answered Gil for tiebreaker question #1).

In addition to eternal glory (until the next Knesset election), Benjamin has won guest-blogging privileges on Mah Rabu for a week. However, he has declined this award (in order to focus on his own blogs), and has instead requested a post (or posts) on Mah Rabu, which will be coming soon.

See you in 2010, or more likely sooner!