Blue and White leader tells president of defeat after unity talks with Likud collapse; Knesset now has 21 days to find a PM as Israel edges into unprecedented political territory
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz on Wednesday night informed President Reuven Rivlin he had failed to form a governing coalition, paving the way to a shocking third round of elections in under a year.
The centrist leader conceded defeat in a phone call with the president, ahead of a televised speech, after unity talks with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu broke down.
The announcement came several hours before his midnight deadline. With the declaration, the country’s year-long spiraling political chaos entered uncharted territory, formally laid out in law but never before exercised: Israeli lawmakers now have 21 days during which any 61 Knesset members can back any MK as prime minister, including Netanyahu or Gantz. If that doesn’t occur, Israel will go to unprecedented third elections in under a year.
Gantz told Rivlin he was determined to work during the upcoming three-week period “and make every effort to form a good government for the citizens of Israel.”
“Even in these [coming] days, I plan to engage in direct, relevant and rapid negotiations to establish a government that will remove Israel from the total paralysis imposed on it” by the Likud-led bloc of right-wing and religious parties, Gantz said in a speech shortly after the announcement.
Gantz was tasked last month with forming a coalition after Netanyahu failed to do so, becoming the first prime minister-designate other than the Likud leader in a decade.