‘Leaders of some center-left political parties are considering a plan to support right-wing Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett if it is necessary to deprive Benjamin Netanyahu of the majority after the March 23 election,’ A Friday report.
The move would be intended to pull Bennett away from a right-wing, religious coalition led by Netanyahu.
The Channel 13 report says the offer would be for Bennett to serve as prime minister in a rotation agreement for a year without naming sources. The report did not say with whom Bennett would rotate in the potential deal, but it would presumably be Yair Lapid, leader of Yesh Atid, or Gideon Sa’ar, head of the New Hope party.
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The deal would only be on the table if Netanyahu’s coalition – including his Likud party, United Torah Judaism, Shas and Religious Zionism – won enough seats to form a majority of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset with the support of Yamina, the report said.
The report did not identify which center-left parties were discussing the deal, but Yesh Atid and Blue and White would presumably be mentioned in the talks.
Bennett announced his own candidacy for prime minister and did not rule out cooperating with the anti-Netanyahu bloc or with Netanyahu’s prospective coalition, but said he would not sit in a government led by Lapid.
Polls predict Lapid’s Yesh Atid faction is the second largest party after the election with about 20 seats, after Netanyahu’s Likud, with about 29 seats. New Hope and Yamina vote on 11-14 seats.
MK Yair Lapid attends a Knesset plenary session at the Knesset in Jerusalem on 24 August 2020 (Oren Ben Hakoon / POOL)
According to the recent poll, the pro- or anti-Netanyahu camps do not have a clear path to a majority.
A Thursday poll predicted that Netanyahu and his religious allies would win 47 seats, with Likud winning the most seats at 29.
The Islamic Ra’am party, which also did not rule out Netanyahu’s support, was predicted to win four, and Yamina, 11. If the two parties supported Netanyahu, it would win the prime minister a 62-seat majority. , according to the poll. But it will also force him to support his coalition on the support of a non-Zionist Arab party – a move he has repeatedly attacked his rivals for allegedly pursuing, and which is unlikely to fit well with some of his hard-line partners not.
Meanwhile, the anti-Netanyahu camp had 58 seats in the poll. Assuming that the joint list of the Arab majority remains outside any coalition, that the constituent parties of the bloc succeed in imposing their main ideological differences and that Yamina joins it, it could form a coalition of 61, which Bennett as a potential kingmaker.
The survey prevented the left-wing Meretz party from exceeding the election threshold.
Channel 12 analyst Rina Matsliah suggested on Friday that Bennett would not refuse the premiership if it was offered, but would likely demand that certain parties such as the Joint List, Meretz and Yisrael Beytenu not be part of his government and rather by the Religious Zionism party. , without the extremist candidate of the lead, Itamar Ben Gvir, of the Otzma Yehudit faction.
National elections – the fourth in two years – have been called after the power-sharing government of Likud and Blue and White did not agree on a budget by a deadline of 23 December. The election, like the previous three votes, is largely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s rule amid his ongoing trial on corruption charges, as well as the government’s divergent success fighting the pandemic.
