Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin confirmed on Friday afternoon that he would announce that Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has managed to form a coalition on Monday, a technical step required before the Knesset can approve the new government. Levin’s announcement came after concerns were raised of him attempting to delay the step. Earlier Friday, Levin told Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid to submit all the agreements he has signed with parties that will be joining his coalition.
The agreements were reached by Wednesday, but have not been finalized.
“It cannot be that coalition agreements will be hidden from the Knesset and the public,” Levin said.Yesh Atid and Yamina issued a joint statement saying that the coalition agreements would be submitted transparently. They called on Levin to convene the Knesset plenum and “enable the formation of a functioning unity government that will extract us from the chaos.”Yamina leader Naftali Bennett convened his faction at his home in Ra’anana on Friday. Following the meeting, MK Abir Kara told reporters outside that there would be no more defectors from Yamina, following MK Amichai Chikli’s defection from the party in early May.
if(window.location.pathname.indexOf(“656089”) != -1){console.log(“hedva connatix”);document.getElementsByClassName(“divConnatix”)[0].style.display =”none”;}Yamina MK Nir Orbach was expected to decide whether or not he backs the incoming coalition’s call to replace Levin as Knesset speaker during the meeting.
The 61 MKs making up the up-and-coming coalition submitted a formal request to Secretary of the Knesset Yardena Muller-Horowitz on Thursday to begin the process of replacing Levin, but soon after it was submitted, Orbach said his signature on the letter to Muller-Horowitz was added without his knowledge, and asked that it be withdrawn. Without Orbach, the coalition would not have the 61 MKs needed to unseat Levin.
But Bennett met Orbach and his wife later in the afternoon, and he backed off. Orbach will decide by Friday’s Yamina faction meeting whether to vote in favor of the new government, or resign and enable deaf activist Shirley Pinto, the next candidate on the Yamina list, to enter the Knesset.
“I will do all I can to ensure it will succeed,” Orbach wrote on Twitter about the new government after his meeting with Bennett.
The MKs took the step of submitting the request in order to facilitate the formation of a government as soon as possible, after Likud officials said Levin would only allow a vote of confidence in the new government at the last possible date permitted by law in order to increase pressure on Yamina MKs to vote against the government.
The coalition candidate to replace Levin as speaker is Mickey Levy of Yesh Atid.On Friday afternoon, Joint List leader Ayman Odeh noted that his party would not support the Bennett-Lapid coalition if they need more votes due to potential last minute defectors, possibly Orbach. “If the Bennett-Lapid government need my vote to save themselves from failure at the last minute, they will not get my vote, unequivocally,” Odeh said in an interview with Arabic news channel Hala TV. Later on Friday, Yamina MK Idit Silman, who was also considering voting against the change government, said she would vote in agreement with her party. “I will be voting in favor of a unity government, it’s final,” she told Ynet.
The Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
The Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
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