Failed to form a coalition: Israel will host third-year parliamentary elections

Israeli political parties were unable to agree on the formation of a coalition government in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) on time. Now the country has to hold the third parliamentary elections in a year. Writes about it Interfax-Ukraine.

Фото: Depositphotos

The deadline for government formation expired at midnight from 11 to 12 December. Moreover, all serious attempts to agree on a coalition were stopped earlier.

The Knesset is now discussing a bill that would call for elections on March 2, 2020. Otherwise, the “automatic” date will be March 10, which falls on the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the Blue and White party for the situation.

“They tried everything to create a minority government with terror supporters Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi, and they failed in that too,” he said.

“They forced new elections on us. It is not necessary. And to prevent this from happening again, we need to do only one thing - win, and win big, and that’s what we will do,” Netanyahu said.

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In turn, the second person in the Blue and White party, Yair Lapid, said that the reasons for the new elections are bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Previous elections were held on April 9 and September 17 on 2019 of the year.

Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nor opposition leader Benny Gantz managed to form a coalition following the September elections. Then the blocks of right and left parties gained about the same number of votes, and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin first commissioned the current Prime Minister to form a government. After Netanyahu failed, this right passed to Ganz, but he also failed to solve this problem.

According to the results first xnumx parliamentary elections in april, the government tried to form Netanyahu, but failed to do so due to the refusal of Avigdor Lieberman, whose party won five seats in the Knesset, to join the block of right-wing parties. Without Lieberman, Netanyahu had 60 votes, that is, before the formation of the coalition, only one vote separated him.

Lieberman set the main condition for the implementation of army reform in Israel, which would oblige young people from ultra-orthodox communities to serve in the army on a par with secular Israelis. However, an impressive part of the bloc of right-wing parties consists of representatives of ultra-orthodox parties who strongly oppose such an initiative. Accepting Lieberman’s terms for Netanyahu would mean losing support for ultra-orthodox parties.

Former Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman, a native of Moldova, is traditionally supported by representatives of the former Soviet republics in Israel. He resigned as head of the defense ministry in November 2018.

After his departure from office, Netanyahu himself served as acting defense minister for a long time and only recently appointed politician Naftali Benet from the New Right party to this position. In the April elections, the New Right did not went to parliament, and following the September vote, they got three seats in the Knesset.

As a result, second parliamentary elections in September 2019 none of the political forces succeeded in gaining a majority in the Knesset sufficient to form the ruling coalition. The center-left bloc received a total of 56 seats, while the right-wing block received 55 seats. The left block includes 13 mandates received by the pro-Arab United List party, which was never previously represented in the government.

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Then a lot also depended on Avigdor Lieberman - the head of the conservative party "Our Home is Israel", which is supported mainly by Russian-speaking Israelis. Lieberman’s party won nine seats in the second election, almost doubling the results of past elections.

Lieberman has repeatedly said that he supports the government of national unity, which, in his opinion, means a government with the participation of Kahol-Lavan, Likud and Our Home - Israel.

“A government of national unity, a broad liberal government. We will not support any other options. From our point of view, there are no other options, ”said Lieberman.

He outlined a number of demands put forward by his party, including the establishment of the institution of secular marriage in Israel, which still does not exist in the country. Currently, the institution of marriage and divorce is in full control of the religious court.

And the leader of Kahol-Lavan, Benny Ganz, said he would not enter the unity government if Netanyahu remained at the head of the Likud.

In the first and second elections, two competing parties gained approximately the same number of votes and went hand in hand. In particular, therefore, party leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Ganz cannot form a ruling coalition, since, given the small gap in votes, each of them wants to head the parliament and will not give up the prime minister’s chair to an opponent.

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