Weariness could be read on the face of Israeli President Réouven Rivlin on Tuesday, April 6. At the end of consultations held the day before with the winning parties of the March 23 elections, to designate the man who will be responsible for forming a government coalition, the 81-year-old dignitary noted that“No candidate has a realistic chance of forming a government. ” After two years, and four legislative elections, Israel is still in the same impasse: a majority of Israelis no longer want the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, but no one can replace him.
Mr. Rivlin therefore stuck to pure arithmetic. He again entrusted this task to Mr. Netanyahu, recommended by fifty-two parliamentarians out of the 120 in the Knesset. His centrist rival, Yair Lapid, won forty-five supporters and the leader of the far-right Yamina party, Naftali Bennett, seven. Three parties – the Unified List, which includes Arab and Communist deputies; RA’AM, an Islamist formation; and New Hope, led by Likud defector Gideon Saar – did not recommend anyone.
” The task will not be easy, but it remains within reach ”, Declared, in reaction, the lucky one elected, Tuesday. To put it mildly: never had Israel’s most enduring prime minister been in such a bad position to form a coalition. His party, the Likud, leads the race, with thirty seats, but it is seven less than in the previous Assembly. His natural allies of the ultra-Orthodox parties (sixteen deputies) still support him, as one man, and he has also secured the support of the six parliamentarians of the religious Zionist party of Bezalel Smotrich, an alliance between ultranationalists, homophobes and supremacist Jews that Mr. Netanyahu helped to create. But, with fifty-two deputies, the count is not there and on the right, the allies do not rush to the gate.
“He’s paying for his past shenanigans”
” No one trusts him anymore Says Gideon Rahat, researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At issue: the national unity government agreement he had concluded in the spring of 2020 with his rival Benny Gantz, providing for an alternation at the head of the government, which Mr. Netanyahu did not respect. “ He preferred, instead, to rush the country to new elections. The Prime Minister is also paying for his past shenanigans: for years he worked so that no one could challenge him on his right. “
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