With 92 votes in favour, the decision ended Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s brief oneyear tenure; Foreign Minister Yair Lapid takes over until the next Executive is formed
REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israel is going to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years. The decision came on Thursday 30th after MPs dissolved Parliament and ended the Prime Minister’s short yearlong government. Naphtali Bennettwho led a coalition of eight parties (right, left and center) that included an Arab formation for the first time, something historic Israel. The dissolution was passed with 92 votes in favor and none against out of a total of 120 seats in parliament. Before voting, MEPs set November 1 as the date for the next legislative periods.
The main goal of the coalition was to end the 12 years of uninterrupted rule of rightwing Benjamin Netanyahu, but also to form an executive, which had been impossible after the previous three elections. Bennett will step down at midnight and be replaced by his coalition partner, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who will lead the government in what is expected to be a bitter campaign against opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Naftali Bennett resigns after a year in power │AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
Bennett, a former army commander and tech millionaire, won’t be running in the elections. Hours before the dissolution of parliament, he announced that he would no longer stand as a candidate in the next elections. In a statement Wednesday night, he said his government left behind a “prosperous, strong and secure country” and showed that parties from different ends of the political spectrum can work together. Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to return to power at the head of the rightwing Likud party, which opinion polls say is the strongest.
Ahead of the vote, the candidate, who was ousted just over a year ago by Bennett’s unlikely coalition of rightleft parties, said: “They promised change, they spoke of a cure, they conducted an experiment and the experiment failed .” “That’s what happens when you take a false right with a radical left and mix them up with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Joint List (Arab coalition).” Polls show that the Israeli political landscape remains highly fragmented, with 13 parties share the 120 seats of the Kneset.
