Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, held on to his job, announcing that he had hammered together a new
coalition government just ahead of a midnight legal deadline, Al Jazreera
reports.
But with a knife-edge majority of
just one seat in the 120-member parliament expectations were that he would have
to expand the ruling alliance beyond his natural religious and rightish
partners or battle for survival at every vote.
“I am leaving here to call the
president and the speaker of the parliament to inform them that I have been
able to build a government,” he said in remarks at the Kenesst after marathon
talks with Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett on Wednesday.
“We need to launch it next week
and we shall do so,” he added.
President Reuven Rivlin’s office
said he had sent a written note followed up with a phone call.
“I am honoured to inform you that
I have been successful in forming a government, which I will request is brought
before the Knesset for its approval as soon as possible,” Rivlin’s office quote
the note as saying.
“The negotiation is over,” Bennett
said on his Official Twitter Account, adding,” Now we get to work.”
The news came just over an hour
ahead of a legal deadline at midnight (2100 GTM) after which the task of
forming a government would have been given to another party leader – most
likely Isaac Herzog, head of the centre-left Zionist Union, which won 24 seats
in the March 17 election, behind 30 for Netanyahu’s right-wing likud.
The deal with Bennett leaves
Netanyahu in command of 61 Kneset votes, brought at the cost of major
concessions to his partners.
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