Yair Lapid is almost reaching the goal he has set himself for several years: to oust Benjamin Netanyahu from power in Israel.
The centrist, who has imposed himself through the ballot box as the main opponent of the outgoing Prime Minister, was charged, Wednesday 5 May, with forming a government by President Reuven Rivlin.
After winning the legislative elections on March 23, the irremovable Prime Minister, in power for 12 years, failed to form a coalition within the time limit.
Yaïr Lapid, whose formation "Yesh Atid", literally "There is a future", came in second place with 17 elected, will also have 28 days to try to convince 61 deputies to join his coalition, out of the 120 that counts the Knesset, the Israelian Parliament.
For now, according to local media, he can count on the support of 56 elected members of Parliament.
If he manages to succeed where Benjamin Netanyahu failed on the other side of the political spectrum, a page will be turned in the country's history, but if he fails, the Israelis stand a good chance of returning a fifth. times at the polls in two years.
"The task will not be easy for Yaïr Lapid, who will have to combine the center-left, left and right-wing parties that make up the anti-Netanyahu camp," said Gwendoline Debono, France 24 correspondent in Jerusalem. Yaïr Lapid said already warned that such a government would not be perfect, but that it would take its responsibilities when the time came ".
From journalism to politics
Ambitious, charismatic and fiercely secular, Yaïr Lapid, born November 5, 1963 in Tel Aviv, where he cultivates his main networks, began his political career in January 2012, after leaving the world of journalism by resigning his post as presenter. TV star.
But nothing predestined this self-proclaimed "autodidact" who gave up, when he was a high school student, to pass the equivalent of the baccalaureate to become a novelist, to one day run the Hebrew state.
But today he seems more than ever to follow in the footsteps of his father Yosef Tommy Lapid, who died in 2008, who was a prominent figure in Israeli political life.
A Holocaust survivor, he held the post of Minister of Justice in 2003 after an unexpected breakthrough in the legislative elections of the same year for his Shinoui party.
To embark on a political arena already dominated at the time by Benjamin Natanyahu, Yaïr Lapid then founded, in 2012, his center-right party, Yesh Atid.
Nicknamed the Israeli George Clooney, his speeches lambasting the corruption of the political class and budget deficits hit the target of his target: the middle classes.
He made a sensational entry into the Israeli Parliament, surprisingly winning 19 seats for his party in the January 2013 legislative elections, thanks in particular to a campaign focused on socio-economic issues and secularism.
A rivalry never denied
His party representing the second political force in the country, while the polls gave him only fourth place in the legislative elections, the amateur boxer, father of three children, agrees to join the coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who appoints him Minister of Finance. Their collaboration at the top of power will cease in 2014. The two men will never be in the same government again and will maintain a rivalry that has never wavered since he joined the opposition ranks.
Yaïr Lapid, who always says he believes in the two-state solution when asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while describing himself as a patriot and "hawk" in matters of security, is now reaping the rewards of an anti-Netanyahu stance with which he did not compromise.
And this, unlike his former centrist companions within the ephemeral Blue-White coalition, and in particular Benny Gantz, who ended up rallying, in March 2020, Prime Minister Netanyahu to get out of the political impasse and who have been heavily discredited since.
During the last campaign, the outgoing Prime Minister, prosecuted for corruption in three cases, focused his attacks on Yaïr Lapid.
For his part, the centrist declared that he wanted to prevent him from forming a "racist, homophobic and extorting government".
He even called it "a danger to Israeli democracy" and called on the Israelis to bid "collective farewell" to Benjamin Netanyahu.
To maximize his chances before the March 23 election, Yaïr Lapid had requested and succeeded in meeting Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, who according to him embodies the “modern and progressive” center of which he claims to be.
For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu collected the support of the American Donald Trump, the Russian Vladimir Putin and the Brazilian Jaïr Bolsonaro.
אני מודה לנשיא @EmmanuelMacron על האירוח החם היום בארמון האליזה.
pic.twitter.com/RvPpq9nkok
- יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid🟠 (@yairlapid) April 5, 2019
The ties between Emmanuel Macron and the Israeli deputy date from the time when the first was Minister of the Economy and the second in charge of Finance in Israel.
In 2017, Yaïr Lapid called on binational Israelis to vote for “his friend”, while he was opposed to Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election.
"Breaking down the barriers that divide Israeli society"
Still, it seems difficult for him, to say the least, to remain faithful to this political line while trying to convince a motley opposition made up of both left-wing parties, ultra-nationalists, former members of the Likud and Arab formations, to govern with him and according to his principles.
"If Netanyahu fails to form a government, we will form a unity government," he said recently, saying "the most destructive thing for Israel would be new elections."
According to Israeli media, Yair Lapid has planned to meet quickly with the leaders of other parties who have sworn like him not to sit in a government with Benjamin Natanyahu.
The very right-wing leader of the ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinou party, Avigdor Liberman, already said earlier this week that the "change bloc" opposed to the prime minister could form a government overnight.
Yaïr Lapid, the layman hated by Orthodox Jews, will also have to come to an agreement with the leader of the religious nationalist right Naftali Bennett who finds himself, thanks to his seven deputies, in the very enviable position of kingmaker.
While the latter has said he still prefers to form a right-wing government rather than a coalition with centrist and left-wing parties, Yaïr Lapid has indicated that he is ready to let Naftali Bennett be the first in a rotation agreement. of Prime Minister.
A strategy aimed at "breaking down the barriers that divide Israeli society", which could open the doors of power to it.
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