After the expiration of the mandate of Blue&White Chairman Benny Gantz at midnight, Wednesday, on Thursday morning President Reuven Rivlin announced that the mandate to form the next coalition government will go to the Knesset for 21 days.
“None of the candidates has the support of the majority of Knesset members in a way that allows them to gain the confidence of the Knesset and establish a government, not in the form of a unity government either,” Rivlin wrote Gantz in his role as Speaker of the Knesset. “Out of my commitment to put together a government as quickly as possible, I do not see a possibility of this happening, and so I pass the process to the Knesset. I hope that it will be possible for Knesset members to form a majority in a way that brings about a government as quickly as possible, and avoid a fourth election.”
Over the next 21 days, Knesset members will try to form a majority that will recommend to the president an agreed candidate for prime minister. If no such candidate is found, the 23rd Knesset will be dissolved on May 7 and a fourth round of elections will be declared.
Senior Blue&White negotiators blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the failure of the negotiations, and say he wants another election round, which is why every negotiation meeting with Likud has ended up in unbridgeable disagreements.
The same officials told Kan 11 news that the last option left to Blue&White to force Netanyahu into a unity government is the threat of promoting legislation against letting him run for Prime Minister. According to them, this move would live or die based on the decision of the new splinter group Derech Eretz, Yoaz Hendel and Zvika Hauser. The two MKs, who were thrown out from their posts as Netanyahu’s top advisors for revealing the sex offenses of a third Netanyahu top advisor, have now left Blue&White, where they used to be members of the party’s rightwing faction.
Israel Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Liberman on Thursday morning called on Gantz to advance legislation to prevent Netanyahu from continuing to serve while facing criminal indictments. Liberman posted on Facebook a call to amend the Basic Law: the Government so the prime minister’s term will be terminated if he or she is charged with criminal violations, as well as an amendment limiting the prime minister’s tenure to two consecutive terms. Liberman also called for applying Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
The Likud argued that “the claim that the prime minister wants new elections is ridiculous and baseless. The prime minister is working to establish a national emergency government while maintaining the interests of the nationalist camp and with a concern that the agreement will be equally respected by both parties.”
The Likud and Blue&White negotiating teams will meet again on Thursday, following the collapse of their talks at midnight.