The right-wing Israeli party Yisrael Beiteinu, led by the Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, yesterday rejected the formation of an alternative government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid entering early elections.
The party issued a statement saying that any government that relies on a narrow parliamentary base will not enjoy stability. The statement ruled out the possibility of forming an alternative government before Monday, the date of the Knesset session during which the second and third readings will be conducted for the bill proposing the dissolution of the government and holding early elections.
The statement that was quoted on Israeli TV Channel 10 noted that forming a new government with the support of only 61 of the 120 Knesset members will allow each to threaten and blackmail the government.
“Although we believe that this is not the right time from the country’s point of view to go to elections, the option of forming a different government now is even worse,” Yisrael Beiteinu stated.
The Minister of Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Yuval Steinitz, who is also a leading member of the Likud party, told Channel 2 that Israel will hold new elections, and there is no talk about the postponement of the elections.
Yesterday, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Netanyahu is making extensive deliberations about the formation of an alternative government that would include the two ultra-Orthodox, haredi parties forming the United Torah Judaism alliance, as well as the postponement of the upcoming elections.
On Wednesday, the Israeli Knesset’s general authority approved the first reading of the draft law stipulating the dissolution of the Knesset and setting March 17 for the early elections.
Netanyahu decided on Thursday to dissolve the Knesset and hold early elections in conjunction with the collapse of the government coalition and the exit of six ministers from it. The centrist Yesh Atid party announced on Tuesday the resignation of four of its members following the dismissal the party’s leader Finance Minister Yair Lapid, in addition to the dismissal of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.
The last general elections were held in January 2013.
Under Israeli law, general elections are to be held every four years, unless a decision is reached for holding early elections.
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
