Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

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Liberman announces his going for opposition (political hail Mary I reckon), thus incoming coalition will stand on the narrowest majority of 61. He may try to sway Labour in later on the road, but we're going to have quite a bumpy ride at start.

He does have a sadist touch, Mr. Liberman, doesn't he?

Frankly, if I were Kahlon, I would also defect now. Being a finance minister in a government, which every single government MK (the UTJ and the Shas folk included) can bring down overnight, will not be good for one's reputation.

Netaniyahu's best bet now is to try to split Yesh Atid. But that would be tough.

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Or a unity government.

Why would Labor go into a unity government under Netaniyahu? Why would not their first demand be somebody else for PM?

And, in any case, there are two days left to negotiate such a government. From scratch.

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So if they don't manage to negotiate in time ... is their automatic reelection?

If I am not mistaken, Netanyahu is already on the extension. So, if I recall the law right, if they do not deliver by Thursday, it will be Herzog's turn to try. Liberman played it well.

Of course, they will sign on Thursday. But it will be a difficult government, to say the least. Bennet has asked for Justice, and he will, probably, get it. The others are on board already - though, methinks, Kahlon is being stupid to go into it.

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Jpost reports that JH's Shaked will get Justice. 61 MK coalition to be presented shortly.

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Apparently, the offer of Justice to JH is accompanied with reductions in the content of the porfolio (e.g., the religious courts being taken out). And, at least one other JH MK (Ariel) has told Bennett that, unless HE is given Justice instead of Shaked, he will defect, leaving the coalition without a majority.

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Apparently, the offer of Justice to JH is accompanied with reductions in the content of the porfolio (e.g., the religious courts being taken out). And, at least one other JH MK (Ariel) has told Bennett that, unless HE is given Justice instead of Shaked, he will defect, leaving the coalition without a majority.

Ariel isn't threatening just as an mk, but as the leader of Tkuma, the junior partner in the alliance with JH. If he would leave it would be with Smotrich.

It is going to be fun

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Isn't it about time we opened up a thread on a more populated board like International General about these coalition negotiations?

Also, given the mandatory coalition-building time for the second and third place parties and the time for the election season itself, this hypothetical second election would be...what, October? November?

I would wait, at least, till tomorrow. We might be talking of new elections pretty soon, anyway Or, alternatively, there is going to be nothing to discuss.

There is nothing mandatory about the second and third, from what I understand. And, of course, Herzog could simply tell Rivlin that he cannot form a government and that he recommends disolution.

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What would happen if there was an early election? Beytenu would be out of the Knesset. Probably Meretz too. Would Jewish Home be punished further for not cooperating? Could we see a return to the 80s where Labor and Likud are getting like 80% of the vote together?

Why would Meretz do any worse than last time? If anything, their voters seemed quite happy they made it.

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Or they would just merge into "The Zionist Union" like Hnv1 was saying.

Why would they?

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So that Labor comes in first and gets to form a government. Duh.

Coming first and getting to form the government are entirely logically unrelated propositions. What is important, is who can form the government. On top of everything else, if Meretz and Labor merge, chances are at least some Meretz voters would either move to Hadash (JAL) or will stay home - this may well cost the combine a seat, making government formation even harder.

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Dude, you took part in this thread the whole time it was going on. Why are you pretending like you don't know this stuff?

Coming in first is extremely important to forming a coalition. Shas and UTJ will only form a government with the left if the left comes in first.

Also, it doesn't matter if votes go from Labor to the Joint List because the Joint List will have to be an unofficial member of a Labor coalition anyway.

I thought the entire thread was about the fact that coming first was NOT important. Shas and UTJ have a distinct preference for forming the government with the right. They could be coaxed into a left-wing government (at a cost) - if the right-wing government could not be formed. In addition, Shas and UTJ have a serious issue with YA - and it has an issue with them, so a coalition including both would be extremely difficult and unstable, at best. Finally, why would a Meretznik want a coalition with Shas and UTJ in the first place?

In this particular case the issue was not so much that Likud had more seats, but that the combined right had a lot more seats than the combined left (even if you count the entire JAL as left). The symbolic "come first" has always been pretty much irrelevant.

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Finally, why would a Meretznik want a coalition with Shas and UTJ in the first place?

Now you're just straight up trolling. Meretz has sat with the ultra-Orthodox before. They would want to do it again because a leftist government would not be possible otherwise.

May or may not be. But there would be quite a few Meretz voters who would rather look elsewhere if that is the case.

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Anyway there won't be a second election, Labour's old guard will just make Herzog crawl at one point into a unity government and that is why I will never vote Labour.

That may very well be the case. But for it to get there, a government has to be formed today.

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Question: when you say "Today," do you mean "within the next 83 minutes" or is it midnight of the following day?

Next 38 min.

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The coalition is announced.

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So, Bennett gets Education, Shaked gets Justice (sans religious judge appointing committee), Ariel gets Agriculture and Settlements. They will also have a deputy in Defense and the Knessett Constitution, Law and Justice committee chairmanship. Both Bennett and Shaked get to be in the "narrow" security cabinet.

Pretty snug.

An assault on the courts will be a priority here, it seems.

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Very interested to see who "we're keeping the Foreign Ministry within the Likud" means. Silvan Shalom has held the post before, but that was under the Sharon government, which is no longer remembered fondly, and he seems past his prime in any case. Ze'ev Elkin and Tzachi Hanegbi have both been Deputy FM under Netanyahu; or, if he's going to promote one of the lesser ministers, Gilad Erdan, Yuval Steinitz, and Yisrael Katz are all possibilities. Whoever gets the position will become one of the frontrunners to replace Netanyahu whenever it is that Bibi chooses to leave.

Netanyahu is keeping it for itself, I believe. Hoping to give it to Herzog, eventually.

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This is going to be quite the government for the next six months. Do Kahlon and Kulanu get wiped out next election for supporting the most right wing government in Israeli history and getting little out of it? Stay tuned.

Is Kahlon not getting Finance? Why do you assume he will get nothing?

Finance ministry in such a cabinet is poisonous.

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Why? He's supporters are working class Sephardic Jews. They won't care if he gives a lot of money to the ultra-Orthodox.

Because he is either the most hted person in the country, blamed by everybody for not giving them money - or he is presiding over serious trouble. Most likely, both, actually. It is not the problem that he gives the money to Shasniks - the problem is, what he has to placate the rest. The budget is not bottomless, you know.

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Why? He's supporters are working class Sephardic Jews. They won't care if he gives a lot of money to the ultra-Orthodox.

Because he is either the most hted person in the country, blamed by everybody for not giving them money - or he is presiding over serious trouble. Most likely, both, actually. It is not the problem that he gives the money to Shasniks - the problem is, what he has to placate the rest. The budget is not bottomless, you know.

Lapid still kept more than half his support for whatever reason...

His position was a lot better. He did not have a one-seat margin, so he could say "no", if necessary.

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Labor announces it will not "pair off" with the government to absent during votes (the common practice under which if a government MK is not able to make it to the vote, he agrees with an opposition MK to do the same, not to exploit the absence).  Lapid is saying he is going to sue in order to prevent the government changin the law limiting the cabinet to 18 ministers. And Likud's wn Ayoub Kara says that unless a Druze (that is himself) is appointed a minister, he will break with the coalition.

Fun

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Netanyahu was trying to peel off Orly Levy even before the election. I imagine she will eventually switch. Especially now that her brother is a Likud MK.

Making it 62. Still, better than 61

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So, just to sum up for the record.

Shas gets: ministry of Economy (Deri), Ministry for Development, Negev and Galilee (Deri), ministry of Religious Affairs (Azulai), Deputy Minister of Education (Nahari), Deputy Minister of Finance (Cohen), a deputy speaker, and the chairmanship of the Education Committee of the Knesset.

UTJ gets: Deputy Minister of Health (Litzman - for the moment, the de facto minister behind Netanyahu), Deputy minister of Education (Porush), a deputy speaker, chairmanship of the finance committee and  the chairmanship of Science and Space committee.

The only "Russian" in the cabinet is Elkin (Immigration and Absorption and "strategic affairs")  - and, of course, Edelstein is the Speaker.

Cute.

I want to see the budget.

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How is the ZU holding up in opposition? No cracks as of yet?

Part for a little scene with Yechimovic saying she's against maintaining a joint leadership (Herzog-Livni) past the elections, Alles gut.
It will get more interesting later this year when they have a leadership race

Any new talk of Labor going in a new direction. I'm sure they're not dumb and realize that having a defense oriented leader is more electable...

So far, reviews of Herzog as opposition leader are excellent. He has been making forceful anti-Netanyahu speeches and has overshadowed all other major opposition figures. For the moment, he looks very credible and safer than ever before.