As a reflection of the enormous political drama in Israel, the centrist leader Yair Lapid announced the formation of a government 35 minutes before the expiration of his term.. The unnatural alliances embodied in arduous negotiations between the leader of Yesh Atid and seven parties (left, right, center and even an Arab party) give way to the pact of a coalition as unusual as the effect it can cause: Benjamin's march Netanyahu from power after 12 years in a row in a country where children don't know another person holding the post of prime minister.
The delivery of the agreement has been so complex that it jeopardized the birth of the creature conceived by Lapid, who announced it in extremis to President Reuven Rivlin. «I promise that this Government will serve all the citizens of Israel, both those who voted for us and those who did not; he will respect his opponents and will do everything possible to unite and connect all parts of Israeli society,” he said with satisfaction.
Still, until the inauguration scheduled for 10 days, the Likud will intensify pressure on some deputies from the small right-wing Yamina party not to vote in favor, trying to thwart its leader, Naftali Bennett, from leading the government for the first two years before giving up the relay to Lapid.
As an unprecedented crisis (four elections and a failed rotation government in two years) is fixed with unprecedented formulas, Lapid has agreed with parties of very different ideologies united only in the desire to evict Netanyahu from the official residence on the street balfour of jerusalem. They accuse him of being responsible for the internal tension and political paralysis, and recall his trial for corruption.
The two centrist parties Yesh Atid (17) and Azul y Blanco (8), the two from the left -Meretz (6) and Labor (7)-, the three conservatives -Yamina (6), Nueva Esperanza (6) and Israel Beitenu (7) – and the Islamist Arab Raam (4) make up the “Government of Change”, which would be science fiction without facing the figure of Netanyahu as prime minister and now perhaps as head of the opposition. The fame of the great survivor of the jungle of the Knesset and the extreme heterogeneity of the coalition sewn together by Lapid, dependent on many threads, lead us to remember -some with fear and others with hope- that nothing is final until 61 of the 120 deputies vote in favour.
The great ideological diversity of the Government is also its great weakness. Netanyahu knows this, who at the head of a compact conservative and ultra-orthodox block – made up of 52 deputies – will do everything possible to cause tensions and divisions that will ruin the Lapid and Bennett startup. Like any emerging technology company, it combines originality, daring and risk. Until he assumes the reins of Israel in two years, Lapid will act as number two in the Government, head of Foreign Affairs and above all a firefighter who puts out the guaranteed fires in the coalition.
rotations
The first to assume the leadership of the Government will be Bennett, with hardly any support in Parliament and in the coalition itself. In the elections on March 23, he obtained only seven seats, of which one has already stood out in protest for breaking the electoral promise not to agree with the left, not to base himself on an Arab party or to be under the leadership of Lapid. Never has a politician achieved so much with so little in Israel, taking advantage of the fact that its few soldiers are essential. The price that Bennett pays to be prime minister is the signing of the divorce with his nationalist base.
For the first time, an Arab party is a founding signatory of the Government of the Jewish State. An Executive with so many women is not remembered either (8). Never before has the leftist Meretz embraced a leader identified with the colonies as now, although not out of love but because of Bennett's contribution to the return of the pacifist left to power after 30 years of absence. «He is not a conventional Executive, but what is the alternative? That the defendant for corruption continue as prime minister? New elections to return to the same point? “Says its leader, Nitzan Horowitz, who will be Minister of Health in a country where there is no trace of the pandemic.
The Knesset must approve the Government but in no case will it do so with the overwhelming majority achieved by former Labor leader Isaac Herzog, who with 87 votes in favor became the eleventh president of Israel on Wednesday. Rivlin began the day by congratulating his successor and ended it by presiding over the Cup final while waiting for Lapid's call, which came in the 90th minute.. Double happiness for the centrist leader as his Maccabi Tel Aviv clinched the Cup.