Jerusalem, After two days of consultations with leaders of parties elected to the Knesset , President Isaac Herzog on Thursday evening said it is not clear to him who has the ability to form a government.
“I would like to update the public following the conclusion of the round of consultations with the Knesset factions. I met with the representatives of all the factions. The discussions were open, candid, and also probing.
I asked difficult questions in an effort to help the parties and the public to break free from set ways of thinking and open their minds to other paths”, Herzog said.
However, he went on to say that “the results of the consultations may appear clear, but the authority vested in me by law is to determine who has the ability to form a government, and that is not entirely clear, given the mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves. “I will try to determine this directly and quickly, in personal talks with some of the party leaders. In these talks, I intend to leave no stone unturned in an effort to reach out and build a stable and good government for the people of Israel,” Herzog stressed. The Arab parties, on the other hand, grudgingly recommended Eisenkot, declaring their intent to oust Netanyahu.
United Torah Judaism, a party in the Netanyahu bloc, decided not to recommend him, bringing the number of recommendations for the incumbent Prime Minister to 46. The statement is surprising because, by precedent, the elected member with the most recommendations is generally tasked by the President to form a government.
“The picture is as follows: the representatives of factions totalling 67 members of Knesset recommended the Leader of the Yashar! party, Gadi Eisenkot, to form a government, while the representatives of factions totalling 46 members of Knesset recommended the Prime Minister and Leader of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, to form a government”, he added. The Israeli President said that he would task a member of the Knesset with forming a government on Sunday.
