Israel holds talks on who gets to be PM
Jerusalem, Sept. 22: Israel was set for crucial discussions on Sunday on who should try to form the next government as last week’s deadlocked election threatened Benjamin Netanyahu’s long reign as prime minister.
President Reuven Rivlin was to hold separate meetings with all political parties voted into the latest Parliament, to hear their recommendations on who should be the premier.
It was far from certain that whoever gets the task will succeed in cobbling together a coalition, and there were repeated calls for a unity government to overcome the impasse.
The consultations beginning at 5 pm local time (1400 GMT) — and scheduled to continue Monday — will be streamed live by Rivlin’s office.
The political parties will arrive in order of the number of votes received.
That means ex-military chief Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White alliance will arrive first, since it won 33 seats out of parliament’s 120, two more than Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party.
Later in the evening, Rivlin will hear the recommendations of two key parties: the mainly Arab Joint List alliance, which won the third-most seats with 13, and ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, which won eight.
Israel’s Arab parties have traditionally refrained from endorsing anyone as prime minister, but they have not ruled out backing Gantz this time as part of efforts to oust Netanyahu.
Lieberman could meanwhile play a kingmaker role after his campaign to “make Israel normal again” resonated with the Israeli public.
The slogan is a reference to what he sees as the excessive influence on the country’s politics of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, that were a key part of Netanyahu’s previous coalition.
Lieberman, like many Israelis, says their influence has allowed the ultraOrthodox community to impose aspects of Jewish law on secular society.
Rivlin is not required to choose the politician who gets the most recommendations but the one he believes has the best chance of forming a government. There was speculation that he could alternatively meet with Netanyahu and Gantz and ask them to explore options for forming a unity government.