JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s outgoing coalition government will this week accelerate a bill to dissolve parliament, the country’s fifth election in three years, a cabinet minister said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Monday that he would dissolve his alliance of 8 ideologically varied parties, a year after taking office, and send the country to the polls. A series of defections from her Yamina had put her majority coalition in Israel at a disadvantage. Parliament, known as the Knesset.
Bennett cited the coalition’s failure earlier this month to expand a law giving West Bank settlers special legal prestige as the main impetus for new elections. His key ally, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, will be the interim prime minister until a new government is formed after the elections, which are expected to be held in October.
Social Affairs Minister Meir Cohen, a member of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, told Israel’s kan state TELEVISION channel that the coalition would put the bill to an initial vote on Wednesday.
“We expect that within a week we will complete the process,” Cohen said. “The goal is to finish it as soon as possible and move on to the elections. “
A parliamentary committee approved an initial vote to dissolve parliament on Wednesday, with a final vote expected early next week.
The new elections raise the option that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now leader of the opposition, could simply set up a comeback. Netanyahu was ousted by the eight-party alliance after 4 inconclusive elections that were widely regarded as referendums on his ability to govern. Factions in the alliance’s diversity, from complacent liberals who oppose Israeli settlements to warmongering ultranationalists who reject Palestinian statehood. Only their opposition to Netanyahu united them.
Netanyahu is on trial lately for corruption but has denied wrongdoing, rejecting accusations of witch-hunting through his political opponents. Israeli law does not explicitly state that an accused politician cannot be prime minister.
As politicians prepare for the fall elections, several coalition members have raised the option of passing a law before the Knesset is dissolved that would ban a lawmaker accused of a crime from holding the office of prime minister.
Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said his Yisrael Beytenu party’s purpose in the upcoming elections is to “prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from returning to power. “to assume the office of prime minister.
“I hope this bill will also be in the majority,” he said at an economic convention organized through the Israel Democracy Institute.
Justice Minister Gideon Saar, leader of the New Hope Party, told Army Radio that his faction had advocated for such a bill and would vote for it if it reached parliament.