Israeli President Réouven Rivlin gave the leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, a mandate on Wednesday 5 May to try to form the next government, after the failure of the outgoing Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu.
The latter failed to form a government on Wednesday on schedule. Leading with 30 seats out of 120 in the Israeli Parliament, during the legislative elections of March 23 – the fourth in less than two years in Israel -, Mr. Netanyahu had received in April from the Israeli president, Réouven Rivlin, the mandate to form a government .
But after weeks of intrigue, hallway discussions and sometimes contradictory rumors, the most enduring prime minister in Israel’s history has failed to muster a majority of 61 MPs to form a government. This failure does not mean the end of Mr. Netanyahu’s reign for the time being.
In search of a government of “national union”
Mr. Rivlin received Wednesday morning Yaïr Lapid as well as Naftali Bennett, leader of the radical right-wing Yamina formation, who each asked him to obtain the mandate to form the next government. At the same time, the president had asked the parties to submit potential candidates to him.
“From the recommendations received it became clear that MP Lapid had the best chance of forming a government”Mr. Rivlin said Wednesday. Head of the centrist Yesh Atid (“there is a future”), who came in second place with 17 deputies in the legislative elections, Yaïr Lapid seeks to form a “Government of national unity” – rallying the right, the center and the left – in order to oust from power Mr. Netanyahu, tried at the moment for “corruption” and “embezzlement” in a series of cases.