Yamina rebel holds off on convening his House Committee, the next stop of the bill to call new elections; process expected to be completed next week, but unclear when
23.6.22, 11:18 am
Although the Knesset approved the first of four votes on Wednesday to voluntarily disband, rebel Yamina MK Nir Orbach will halt the dispersal process until Monday to give the Likud-led opposition time to form an alternative coalition and avoid snap elections.
The Knesset requires a law to voluntarily disband, and while Wednesday was the bill’s first step, it needs to pass two committee reviews and three additional readings to be finalized. Its next stop is the Knesset’s House Committee, which Orbach chairs. By refusing to convene the committee until Monday, Orbach is delaying the bill being sent to its first committee review process, a necessary hurdle before its next vote.
Once the House Committee convenes on Monday, the coalition is expected to send the dispersal bill to the more favorable Constitutional, Law and Justice Committee, headed by coalition MK Gilad Kariv (Labor), for an expedited review process. The earliest the Knesset dispersal can be finalized is on Monday, but it may extend into the end of the week.
This past Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced that they would disband the Knesset and send Israel back to its fifth election in three and a half years. Bennett and Lapid said they had “exhausted” avenues to stabilize their rocky minority coalition.
Orbach was the last MK to depart the coalition, saying in his resignation notice that he would work towards forming an alternative right-wing coalition within the current Knesset. Although elements of the opposition and of Bennett’s Yamina party are actively working to create a new, immediate right-wing coalition, it is seen as unlikely that they’ll successfully hit the threshold number of 61 MKs necessary to swap out the government.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister and decade-long Bennett political partner Ayelet Shaked said that she would be willing to join a Likud-led coalition. Shaked, however, is unable to immediately add to the opposition bloc’s MK count, which is currently 55 seats. Under the Knesset’s so-called Norwegian Law, Shaked quit the legislature when taking on her ministerial post. She could return to the Knesset by quitting as interior minister, but it would carry a 48-hour waiting period.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked arrives for a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on May 15, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
It is a gamble: If Shaked and the opposition can cobble together the necessary support to form a new government, the move could make sense. But if the opposition fails to swap the government before dispersal is finalized, then Shaked loses the opportunity to stay at the helm of the Interior Ministry for the interim period, which is expected to last at least until November.
Shaked and the remaining non-Bennett members of Yamina could contribute up to 4 seats, and the next contenders to fill the remaining gaps are MKs from Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White.
On Tuesday, Gantz said that Netanyahu had broken his trust and said he was calling for a broad unity government after the elections.
“Netanyahu used up the political credit that one can give him and therefore there’s nothing to talk about,” Gantz said, in response to reporters asking about joining up with the Likud leader either during the current Knesset or following elections.
New Hope was said to be in negotiations with Likud earlier this month, but reportedly ended contact following the opposition’s successful block of a periodically required bill to renew the application of Israeli law to settlers in the West Bank.
Orbach has been reported to have been promised a guaranteed spot on Likud’s party slate for his rebellion against the coalition. On Monday, Lapid said that it is “illegal” to trade a secured spot on a party slate in exchange for votes against the coalition, and that such behavior would be investigated. On Tuesday, Netanyahu said that he has a number of secured spots to hand out, and that he’ll “take into account” the fact that lawmakers like Orbach “remained loyal to ideology.”
Elections are expected at the end of October or early November, with November 1 reportedly emerging as a likely date.
@Peloni Part of the disturbing pattern of PMs and MKs getting elected on rightwing platforms only to veer left once in office, going way back. Even before Rabin and Sharon, Shamir retreated from Southern Lebanon, Begin from Sinai.
An excellent article:
@Sebastien
Indeed it does.
In order to avoid being held up to any promises in the future, Bennett now suggests we should just trust he would do what is best for Israel, after betraying so many past promises. I wonder if he is requesting this new standard be backdated to the last election to free him of such inexplicable deceptions as he has made. Indeed, such a freedom of any political commitments with a full requirements of trust would appear to be a great ask for someone whose recent infidelities have been so sharply demonstrated over the past year with enormous implications for his voters and the state.
Seeking out a sense of self identity is an important trait in life, as is being faithful to that identity and not betraying it. Bennett has made so many false assertions which his actions demonstrate as being exactly this. At least now his rhetoric is now supporting his recent betrayals. Is his party’s name “Left to Right”? NO, it is not. It is Yamina, rightward. There was no ambiguity, nor any desire of a broad appeal to all sides at the same time when choosing that name, nor when he campaigned for Knessett in any past election, nor when he promised not to form a govt with Lapid, nor when he stated clearly that he would lead his govt “ten steps to the Right of Bibi”. He says he will take no more oaths while campaigning, so at least he will not be faced with something to betray in the next election.
I am quite disgusted by the self serving expression of his new found philosophy which is only now revealed, just in time to avoid the self recriminations of his actions while also providing a new nitch in which he might find some fool to vote for him, as he is faced with the calamity of having to run on the vastly inconsistent record contrasting what he has promised with what he has done.
With Sa’ar’s revelation that he will now seek a party alliance with the Leftist Gantz, I had thought that Yamina was the only true wayward members of the Right in this govt. This belief lasted only a few hours before this greater revelation that there were in fact, no wayward members of the Right in this govt, just wayward promises.
@Peloni
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/bennett-i-want-a-coalition-that-spans-from-ben-gvir-to-mansour-abbas/
If Shaked gambles and loses, who would Lapid appoint Minister of the Interior, would there be an explosion of defiance and illegal Arab settlement?