After an unprecedented three elections this past year and with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political bloc failing to secure a majority of seats, rival parties may form a fragile alliance to oust him from power.
The results of Monday’s election showed Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc falling three seats short of a majority, despite him earlier trumpeting partial results as a “huge victory.” Netanyahu’s Likud Party won a plurality with 36, with allied parties winning 22 additional seats.
Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party won 33, the liberal Labor Party won seven, and the Joint List, a coalition of Arab parties, won a record 15 seats. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s party Yisrael Beiteinu, which split from Netanyahu, received seven seats.
Both Netanyahu, who has been indicted on corruption charges, and Gantz have failed to form majority governments for almost a year, and both have failed to move forward with a Netanyahu-Gantz coalition government. After not doing so in the previous two elections, Lieberman now says he plans to recommend Gantz form the next government, according to Axios.
The Joint List, which is fiercely opposed to Lieberman’s party, has signaled that it could get behind a Gantz government, but only if Gantz makes “a change truly in the direction of peace and equality.”
The possibility of even a temporary alliance of the parties under Gantz could have major implications for Netanyahu because Lieberman supports a bill that wouldn’t allow people who are indicted from forming a government.
Any sort of alliance between White and Blue, Joint List, and Yisrael Beiteinu would be incredibly tenuous, but if the country has a fourth election, it might deny Netanyahu the ability to be prime minister.
