Israeli President Plans to Consult Small Parties on Forming Government
The Israeli President plans to consult with small parties on forming the government after the coalition and opposition failed to secure a majority.
Translated by Qiyas from الجريدة — Original source
Consultations, which will be broadcast live, are scheduled to begin tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon, with the Religious Zionism party, followed by talks with the Haredi Shas party and the far-right Israel Beiteinu party.
Consultations are set to resume on Thursday morning, starting with the United Torah Judaism (Haredi Jewish Torah) alliance, followed by the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, the liberal-left Democratic party, and the two Arab parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, as well as the centrist-right “Yesh Atid” alliance led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Tradition dictates that the president entrusts the candidate who believes he has the best chance of securing a parliamentary majority with forming the government, even if that person is not necessarily the leader of the largest party, which is current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing Likud party topped the last parliamentary elections with 27 out of 120 seats.
Opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot secured 21 seats with his newly established party, Yesh Atid. Since neither Netanyahu’s ruling coalition nor the opposition bloc holds the required majority of 61 seats, the political situation in Israel is expected to remain deadlocked.
The leaders of the two main parties, Herzog and Netanyahu, are scheduled to meet separately on Thursday evening, two days from now.
