Israel heads to election with Netanyahu waiting
JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliament voted on Thursday to dissolve itself, marking the end of a yearold experimental coalition government, and sending the country to the polls in November for the fifth time in less than four years.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister and architect of the outgoing coalition government, will become the country’s caretaker prime minister just after midnight on Friday. He will be the 14th person to hold that office, taking over from Naftali Bennett, Israel’s shortest serving prime minister. Following the vote, Lapid embraced Bennett before the two swapped chairs. He posted, “thanks, Naftali, my brother” on Twitter.
The government collapsed just over a year after it was formed in a historic move that saw long-time leader Benjamin Netanyahu ousted after 12 years in power by a coalition of ideologically diverse parties, the first to include an Arab faction.
The motion to dissolve passed with 92 lawmakers in favour, and none against, after days of bickering by coalition and opposition lawmakers over the date of new elections and other lastminute legislation.
New elections will be held on November 1.
The move brings a formal end to a political experiment in which eight parties from across the Israeli spectrum tried to find common ground after a period of prolonged gridlock in which the country held four elections in two years.
The upcoming elections are an extension of Israel’s protracted political crisis, at the heart of which sits Netanyahu and his ongoing corruption trial.
The four deadlocked elections in the previous three years were largely referendums on Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while facing charges of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Lapid, a former talk-show host who heads a center-left party, is expected to campaign as caretaker prime minister to keep the job as the main alternative to Netanyahu, and will likely get an early boost when he welcomes
President Joe Biden to the country next week.
Polls by Israeli media show Netanyahu and his allies are projected to gain seats, although it is unclear whether they would have enough to form a 61-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset. If neither he nor anyone else succeeds in doing so, Israel could go to elections yet again.
On Wednesday, Bennett said he would be taking a hiatus from politics and would not be running in the upcoming elections.
His Yamina party was riven by infighting and splintered following the formation of the government last year as its members broke away in protest of what they considered Bennett’s excessive compromises to more liberal coalition allies.
The death blow came earlier this month, when the government failed to renew an emergency law that preserves the special legal status of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, legislation that most Israelis view as essential.
THE MOVE BRINGS A FORMAL END TO AN EXPERIMENT IN WHICH 8 PARTIES FROM ACROSS THE SPECTRUM TRIED TO FIND COMMON GROUND
trict. “Development of the state is my priority. I will take all sections of society along with me,” Shinde said after the swearing-in ceremony at the Raj Bhavan shortly after 7.30pm.
He also accused Uddhav Thackeray of ignoring the interests of party MLAS and their constituencies and attributed that as at the chief reason for his revolt.
It was barely 24 hours earlier when the fate of the power struggle – triggered by Shinde when he left with a group of MLAS to Surat on June 22 – was sealed after the Supreme Court rejected the Thackeray camp’s petition to halt a floor test slated for Thursday.
It had become inevitable that the Thackeray camp would have lost the floor test after the ranks of the breakaway faction grew to surpass the 37-mark, giving the flock the legal ability to defect without being disqualified, and a
MAHARASHTRA CM
prior disqualification notice being put in abeyance by the top court, which could have otherwise reduced the Shinde camp’s strength.
Following Wednesday’s court order, Thackeray resigned late in the evening.
Immediately, Fadnavis was seen as the person who would become CM again, with the BJP having more MLAS in the house.
But in what turned out to be a political masterstroke, the BJP decided to side with Shinde – a decision that will allow him to stake his claim on the mantle of the Shiv Sena, dent Thackeray’s ability to hold on to his bastion in Mumbai in the upcoming civic polls, and most importantly, rob him of his biggest argument against the rebellion: that the BJP would never make a Sainik the CM.
“The decision to make Shinde chief minister instead of Fadnavis was taken after Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray made an emotional appeal through his online address. There was feeling among the top brass that Thackeray could get sympathy due to his decision to quit following the rebellion,” a top BJP leader said on Thursday, asking not to be named.
The rebel Shiv Sena MLAS were still in Goa on Thursday evening, after arriving from Guwahati on Wednesday night. There were visuals of them dancing in delight as their leader took the top job.
A two-day special session of the Maharashtra legislature will be held from July 2, and the BJP and Sena faction will now need to prove they have the numbers in a floor test.
Taking a dig at Fadnavis, NCP president Sharad Pawar said in Pune that the BJP leader did not seem to be happy taking over as deputy CM.
“According to me, it does not seem that Fadnavis has accepted the number 2 position (deputy chief minister) happily. His facial expression said all. He is from Nagpur and he has worked as a swayamsevak with (RSS) and there, when the order comes, it has to be followed,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said rebel MLAS have chosen their own way and there would be no hindrance from the party in the path of the dissidents associating themselves with the BJP as he once again targeted the breakaway group.
He also tweeted an image of a man in a white kurta pyjama, who is presumably dressed like Uddhav Thackeray, with blood oozing from a wound on his back. “This is exactly what happened,” Raut tweeted, alluding to the dissidents who switched sides.
The Congress hit out at the BJP. “The offices of the governors and speakers, and agencies like ED and CBI are openly misused. Buying MLAS has become so commonplace that the Finance Minister blurted out the truth today, when she suggested imposition of GST on horse-trading,” Congress’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh said in a statement on Thursday.
“This is a strategic design to finish off Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. By making Shinde the CM, it has been made easier for him to effect a vertical split in the party,” said Thane-based political analyst Prakash Bal.
“Now the Shinde camp will be able to prove that this was the real party and their whip should prevail in no-confidence and the Speaker’s election. This has been BJP’S design all across the country. Secondly, according to my information, the BJP leadership was not keen on making Fadnavis the next CM for various reasons. On the other hand, it would not be easy even for the faction led by Shinde to survive in the company of the BJP,” he added.