Israeli PM’s have until midnight December 22, 2020 to broker an agreement on a budget or face an automatic dissolution of parliament and snap elections, likely to be held in March.
A vote taken late Monday night to postpone this date deadline failed in the Knesset, reflecting the tenuous nature of the alliance between Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White.
Speaking to the press earlier, in the presence of White House adviser Jared Kushner, Netanyahu blamed Gantz for causing “unnecessary elections” because of the internal pressure he faced within his party “Blue and White”.
New challengers: If Israel is to face its fourth election in two years, it will again be under a new political landscape. The expected March vote will come after the start of Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial and will likely feature “New Hope”, the party of Gideon Saar, a former Likud member who failed to oust Netanyahu in leadership elections last year. Despite the new challenge, polls still favor Likud to win more seats than any other party—but Saar’s breakaway party would make it hard for Netanyahu to form a majority coalition. In addition we have to see what will be the Arab Israeli coalition result which was better than the previous one as far as of number of seats is concerned.
What is Blue and White situation? Whether Gantz’s Blue and White remains a political force is an open question. Formed in fierce opposition to Netanyahu only to join him in government, apparently the party is enduring the most rapid write-off in Israeli political history. It appears that Blue and White is bleeding members, and according to current polls would struggle to breach the 3.25 percent vote threshold to enter parliament.
It looks like the Israeli public may have grown weary, to say the least, of these repetitive elections. Could the price of a fourth election since the start of 2019 be likely a lower voter turnout?