JERUSALEM, Jul 1 (NNN-XINHUA) – Israeli lawmakers voted to dissolve parliament yesterday, ending Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett’s year-long coalition government, and sending the country back to polls for the fifth time in fewer than four years, in a move that could see former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, back in power.
The 120-member parliament voted 92-0 to dissolve itself and hold the next elections on Nov 1, a parliamentary spokesperson said in a statement.
Bennett is expected to hand power to Yair Lapid, Israeli foreign minister and leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, under the power-sharing deal they agreed upon, following inconclusive elections in 2021.
The change of power will become effective as of today, and Lapid will hold the position until the next government is formed.
Lapid, a former journalist and media personality, will become Israel’s 14th prime minister, replacing Bennett, the country’s shortest-serving leader.
As interim prime minister, Lapid, 58, has a schedule filled with diplomatic and security issues. On Sunday, he will host his first cabinet meeting as prime minister. Two days later he will travel to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron.
In mid-July, he will be the one to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden, whose pre-scheduled trip to the Middle East covers Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel hopes the White House will help form security cooperation with Saudi Arabia against possible Iranian attacks.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed in 2020, to normalise their ties with Israel under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, but Saudi Arabia has not followed.
Bennett’s coalition pushed for rapid approval of the dissolution bill, after he announced last week that his government was no longer tenable.
The coalition was inaugurated in Jun, 2021, when Bennett and Lapid formed it, after two years of political crisis, in which no candidate, including Netanyahu, could gain enough votes to form a government.
It is made up of eight ideologically diverse parties, including liberal Doves, secular Hawks, religious pro-settlers, and the Islamic party of Ra’am, marking the first time an Arab party was part of a coalition government in Israel. The sole motive that united them was to oust Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, who is facing criminal trial on three separate cases of corruption.
A series of defections left the coalition without a majority in parliament for more than two months.– NNN-XINHUA
