Herzog to name Israeli government candidate Sunday after Eisenkot leads backing

Israel's President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday that he will name a candidate to form the country's next government on Sunday, after consultations showed opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot with more support among lawmakers than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Herzog announced the plan following marathon talks with parties in the 120-seat Knesset. Sixty-seven lawmakers recommended Eisenkot, a former military chief, while 46 backed Netanyahu.

In televised remarks at the end of the consultations, Herzog said the "results of the consultations may appear clear" but pointed to "mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves" that made it hard to say who had the best chance of assembling a governing coalition. He said he would hold personal talks with some party leaders over the Israeli weekend, which runs Friday and Saturday, before making his choice on Sunday.

A divided Knesset

The October 27 election left neither man with a clear path to a parliamentary majority. Netanyahu's Likud won the most seats of any single party, 27, but his wider religious-nationalist coalition took only 53 seats in total. Eisenkot's alliance of four Jewish-led parties, spanning the centre-left to the right, won 48 seats despite polls that had predicted a close race. Two parties representing Israel's Palestinian minority won an unprecedented 19 seats.

Eisenkot, like Netanyahu, has ruled out forming a government with the Arab-led parties, but both of them recommended him, giving him the support of a comfortable majority of lawmakers. Ahmad Tibi, a senior member of the Joint List, told The Associated Press: "We want to do things that we did not do in the past in order to remove this criminal government."

Eisenkot's party, Yashar, said the 67 recommendations were the most any candidate had received since 2015, and urged Herzog to give him the mandate "as soon as possible" so he could form a national emergency government.

Netanyahu's setback

Netanyahu suffered a setback on Thursday when United Torah Judaism, one of the two main ultra-Orthodox parties and a longtime ally, declined to recommend any candidate. The party broke with Netanyahu over his coalition's failure to pass legislation exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military service, according to The Times of Israel.

Yariv Oppenheimer, a member of the Democrats party in Eisenkot's alliance, told Al Jazeera he saw "no reason" Herzog would not choose Eisenkot on Sunday. He said United Torah Judaism had signalled that its support was available for the right price, and added: "It's very clear that Netanyahu doesn't have a chance to establish a government at all."

Once nominated by Herzog, the candidate has 28 days to try to forge a government, with a possible 14-day extension. Netanyahu will remain prime minister in a caretaker government until a new coalition is formed, or through another election that must be held if no candidate succeeds.

Netanyahu, at risk of losing power, has seized on an investigation by election officials into possible vote tampering to cast doubt on the results, accusing Arab-led parties of stealing the vote. Critics accuse Netanyahu and his partners of trying to undermine the results, which he denies. Israel's Central Election Committee said on Wednesday that the election's integrity had not been compromised. The committee's head, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, told Herzog that "one of the foundations of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power" and called on elected officials to protect public trust rather than shake it, describing high voter turnout, including among the Arab minority, as a blessing.

Netanyahu's allies on the far-right, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have called for the immediate arrest and interrogation of Arab party leaders.

Source: Al Jazeera.