The president of Israel, confronted with the dilemma of choose between Netanyahu or GantzGantz aspires to lead the israeli government of unity without Netanyahu
For the second time in five months, Benjamin Netanyahu has in its hands the responsibility of forming a government in Israel. The office of the President Reuven Rivlin announced the appointment of the leader of the Likud party as the candidate elected after a few last days in which it is speculated the formation of a government of national unity next to Benny Gantz , winner of the elections of the 17th of September in front of Blue and White with 33 seats. The Likud party won one less, but Rivlin believes that Netanyahu has more options of getting to partnerships, to reach the 61 seats needed to seize the majority in a chamber of 120 seats. Who has been prime minister during the last decade has 28 days ahead to forge a coalition, 28 days that they are all a ball of oxygen since the 3 of October will appear before the Justice because of his corruption cases.
“My inability to form a government is slightly lower than that of Gantz,” admitted the candidate elected at the joint press conference that offered next to Rivlin to assess the new scenario that opens in the country, and in which he returned to tend his hand to the former head of the Army to enter in their Executive. Gantz made it very clear that his party is not asked to be part of a project led by a leader who is at the gates to be processed, an idea that has based his whole campaign to promote change and to establish itself as a figure of the fight against corruption.
Rivlin invited the two leaders on the Monday after the round of contacts that the president had with the representatives of the political forces gained representation in the chamber. The end result of these interviews, which are offered in live for all the world would follow, resulting with 55 support for Netanyahu and 54 for Gantz . The decision of the three members of the Balad party, part of the “Joint List” formed by the arab parties, that is the third force in the country, with thirteen deputies, to break the consensus of the coalition and not support Gantz desniveló the balance in favor of the leader of the Likud party, which becomes to have a mandate in that it failed after the election of April.
Rivlin tried to Netanyahu and Gantz laid down a government of unity, a type to which Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres agreed between 1984 and 1988, when both leaders agreed to a head of government rotating, but after 35 years, this has not been able to repeat, and the country’s prolonged state of uncertainty.
The key is Lieberman
After the April elections, Netanyahu lacked the seats of the party of Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel, our home), which now returns to become the key actor. Faced with the refusal of Gantz to join forces, the future political leader of the Likud depends on nine seats obtained by the formation of the former Defense minister and former right hand of the own Netanyahu at the beginning of the nineties. The negotiation will not be easy because, Lieberman, that brings the vote of the jewish emigrants arrived from the former USSR, has put on the table demands of marked secular character such as the law on military service for the ultra-orthodox, the opening of small shops on Shabbat (holy day for the jews), or the establishment of the civil marriage impossible to accept by the allies ultra religious by the prime minister.
In the event that Netanyahu would fail again, Rivlin could entrust the mission to Gantz, or another candidate from the Likud, remember the local media, where it was received with surprise the announcement by the president.
