Netanyahu fails to form government in Israel, passing mandate to Gantz
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lost the mandate to form a new government after failing to build a coalition following last month’s election.
With no party having the majority required to govern after September’s election, President Reuven Rivlin selected Netanyahu as the most likely to form a coalition within 28 days, but that period has now passed with no success, and the mandate will pass to Benny Gantz for an equal period.
Netanyahu’s Likud party holds 32 seats in the Knesset currently, and with its allied minor parties reaches a total of 55 in the caretaker government. The Knesset totals 120 seats, so 61 are required for a majority government.
What broke Netanyahu’s previous majority coalition was the defection of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, led by secular Avigdor Lieberman, who now refuses to sit with the ultra-Orthodox religious parties that make up a component of Netanyahu’s right-wing power base.
Lieberman is now the potential kingmaker for any government, and has repeatedly pushed for a unity government between Likud and its left-wing rival party Blue and White.
Such a unity government according to Lieberman’s wishes would shut out both the ultra-Orthodox and the Joint List of Arab parties, and, ironically, would not actually require Yisrael Beiteinu’s support once Likud and Blue and White came together..
Led by Benny Gantz, Blue and White has held firm against joining any government in which Netanyahu would remain Prime Minister, as the PM faces indictments in three corruption cases.
As long as Netanyahu remains PM, he would be able to use the influence of the office while fighting the proceedings against him, and would not be forced to resign until after those cases were decided.
Blue and White may still seek to form a coalition government including Likud, but with a rotating premiership, placing Gantz in the PM seat for long enough that the cases against Netanyahu could play out before he would regain the position.
Likud may consider such a coalition as a sacrificial play, however, fearing that it would only remove Netanyahu from power and then collapse before the rotation takes place.
Netanyahu has lashed out against both Gantz and Lieberman, as well as Blue and White’s second-in-command Yair Lapid, for rejecting a coalition government with himself at the helm.
He also directed his usual ire at the Arab Joint List and any possibility of a government that included them, labeling them as terrorist supporters and incompatible with his party’s view of Israel as a solely Jewish state.
“If Gantz is tempted to form such a dangerous government, I will head the opposition against it and work hard to bring it down” Netanyahu said, “It is not too late to shake off the advice of Liberman and Lapid (Yair Lapid, second-in-command of the Blue and White Party) and form a unity government made up of all those who believe in Israel as a Jewish state and a democratic state”.
