Blue and White under pressure to compromise on ministers

Likud, Blue and White restart talks

By Gil Hoffman, JPOST

Benny Gantz, head of Blue and White party, looks on as he gives a statement to the media in Ramat Gan, Israel March 1, 2020
(photo credit: NIR ELIAS / REUTERS)

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz faced pressure on Tuesday to give up his demand for the same number of ministers as the Likud and its satellite parties after complaints about the size of the government during an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.

Likud and Blue and White’s negotiating teams met on Tuesday night by video conference after a day and a half with no talks.

The current plan remains for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and Yamina to have 15 ministers and for Blue and White and Labor to have the same, even though the Right-Center bloc would have 58 MKs and the Center-Left bloc 19.

Likud officials have told Gantz he could achieve the same goal of equalizing the Likud’s power by requiring a special majority for key votes in the cabinet.

Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar said Gantz could solve the problem of a bloated government by giving up his demand.

“Fifteen ministers for the 58-MK right-wing bloc is reasonable and even modest,” he said. “But 15 ministers for a faction of 15 is completely ridiculous.”

Netanyahu faced rare criticism from inside his Likud party on Tuesday when Sa’ar decried the large government Netanyahu is building with Blue and White.

Sa’ar, who ran against Netanyahu in December to be Likud leader, likely will not be given a portfolio despite winning the fifth slot on the Likud list and serving as interior minister and education minister in the past.

“It should be a lean government,” he wrote on Twitter. “There have been large governments in Israel before, but it would not be right to form the most bloated government at a time of the worst economic crisis.”

Sa’ar called for ministers, MKs, judges and directors-general to take a significant pay cut and decrease their pensions. The cut must be differential, according to salary level, he said. He posted a letter indicating he had done that.

“When dealing with the crisis over the coronavirus, it is important [for public figures] to set a personal example,” Sa’ar wrote.

Sources close to Netanyahu responded by accusing Sa’ar of “sabotaging Netanyahu’s efforts to form a government after he lost to him in the primary.”