Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday (September 25th) instructed incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form the next government and thus try to get the country out of the impasse, as parliamentary elections failed to produce a clear majority.
"The responsibility for forming the next government will be given to Prime Minister and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu," the presidency said in a statement.
The president of the Jewish state had met Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz, who had almost reached a tie in the legislative elections on 17 September, and encouraged them to discuss the formation of a "unity government".
The outgoing prime minister, with his right-wing allies and religious parties, currently has 55 supporters out of the 120 in parliament and the centrist Benny Gantz, with the rallying of left-wing and mostly Arab parties, only gathers 54 deputies.
None of them has yet managed to win the support of 61 deputies, the threshold of the absolute majority in the Israeli Parliament, hence the president's call for this "unity government" and the talks since Monday between the two. camps came first.
Likud (right) and Bleu-blanc (center), Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, respectively, were already meeting Wednesday evening at the residence of President Rivlin to inform them of the state of their talks, the presidency confirmed. AFP.
Benjamin Netanyahu plays his future
Israel's longest-serving prime minister, with 13 years at the helm of the government - including the last ten without stopping - must be heard in early October to answer to accusations of "corruption", "fraud" and "breach of trust" in three cases.
If he succeeds in remaining in office by forming a government, he will be forced to resign only if he is convicted and all remedies have been exhausted. On the other hand, a minister in Israel may be forced to resign as soon as he is indicted
Benjamin Netanyahu had already played his all-out last April, in a first election that had not led to any government. He then preferred to call the Israelis to the polls less than six months later, hoping to gather a coalition.
Israeli society seems deeply divided between supporters of "King Bibi" and those who want to do everything to see him give way.
Final results on Wednesday diverge slightly from estimates, giving Likud an additional seat to 32 MPs at the expense of the ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish party ("Unified Judaism of the Torah"), which now has only seven representatives in Parliament .
This exchange of seats, however, does not change the balance of the two blocks Likud / Blue-white.
With AFP