Parties scramble after close Israeli vote

JERUSALEM, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Israel has entered a political limbo after an inconclusive election sent party leaders scrambling to find coalition partners, analysts said.

Coalition talks were already starting Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Israeli voters gave Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima Party an apparent first-place finish with 28 of the Knesset's 120 seats, while Binyamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party followed closely behind at 27 seats with 99 percent of the vote counted, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The newspaper said Netanyahu met Shas Party leader Eli Yishai and was waiting to talk with Avigdor Lieberman, the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party chairman, who had earlier met with Livni.

Analysts told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz it was unclear if Livni could muster the 61-seat coalition needed to form a government, and that Netanyahu had a better chance to do so because of the emergence of Lieberman as a potential kingmaker. His far-right party surged into third place with 15 seats on its platform of denying citizenship to Israeli Arabs deemed to be insufficiently loyal.

Lieberman told reporters he was leaving his options open, saying he could choose to join a Likud or a Kadima-led government, but he added he preferred a "nationalist" government.