Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was fighting for his political survival in the final hours of a close Israeli election Tuesday, urging voters to support him to avert what he termed a “Disaster!”

His voice hoarse from weeks of campaigning, the veteran leader took to the streets and social media, at one point using a megaphone in Jerusalem’s bus station, to urge voters to extend his decade in power.

Polls put former armed forces chief Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party neck-and-neck with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud, and suggest the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party could emerge as kingmaker in coalition talks.

Barred by law from campaigning on mainstream media, party leaders took to social networks to mobilize support, though Facebook blocked Netanyahu for a violation of the rule, Haaretz reported.

Describing a possible outcome if his supporters don’t show up at the polls, Netanyahu wrote on Twitter: “High voting percentage in left-wing strongholds. Voting percentages low in right-wing strongholds. Disaster!”

Without their support, “we will get a left-wing government with Arab parties,” he wrote.

Gantz posted a video of himself leaning out a car window in traffic during a random encounter with a supportive commuter.

Gantz’s co-leader, Yair Lapid, urged left-leaning constituents to come out and vote and said, “Bibi is lying,” using Netanyahu’s nickname.

The two main parties’ campaigns in Israel’s second parliamentary election in five months pointed to only narrow differences on many important issues: the regional struggle against Iran, the Palestinian conflict, ties with the US and the economy.

An end to the Netanyahu era would be unlikely to lead to a big change in policy on hotly disputed issues in the peace process with the Palestinians that collapsed five years ago.

Netanyahu has announced his intention to annex the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinians seek statehood, a move applauded by President Trump.

But Blue and White has also said it would strengthen Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, with the Jordan Valley as Israel’s “eastern security border.”

The Palestinians and many countries consider the settlements on land seized after the 1967 Six-Day War with neighboring Arab states to be illegal.

The election was called after Netanyahu failed to form a coalition following an April election in which Likud and Blue and White were tied, each taking 35 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. It’s the first time Israel has had two general elections in a single year.

Netanyahu, 69, has cast himself as indispensable and blighted by voter complacency over his tenure — the longest of any Israeli prime minister.

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. Israeli time and will close at 10 p.m. — 3 p.m. New York time.

Israeli media will then publish exit polls giving a first indication of the outcome.

Both Netanyahu and Gantz, 60, have tried to energize their bases, and poach votes from smaller parties.

Netanyahu portrays Gantz as inexperienced and incapable of commanding respect from world leaders like Trump.

Gantz accuses Netanyahu of trying to deflect attention from his possible indictment on corruption charges that the prime minister have dismissed as baseless.

Before the last election, Trump gave Netanyahu a boost with US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The Trump administration plans soon to release an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — which may prove a dead letter, since the Palestinians have already rejected it as biased.

Weeks of wrangling over who should be tasked with forming the next government could follow the election.

Opinion polls indicate Yisrael Beiteinu could hold the key to the next coalition because it is forecast to double its representation in the Knesset, from five seats to 10.

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