Parties representing 61 MKs to recommend Netanyahu as PM

Party leaders representing 61 of the 120 Knesset members are set to recommend to President Reuven Rivlin in consultations on Sunday and Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be charged with forming the next government.

The 61 MKs are represented by Netanyahu’s Likud (30 seats), Kulanu (10), Jewish Home (8), Shas (7) and United Torah Judaism (6) — five of the six parties with which Netanyahu intends to build his coalition following his success in the March 17 elections. Yisrael Beytenu (6 seats), the final party in Netanyahu’s proposed coalition jigsaw, is set to decide on Sunday whether to recommend Netanyahu. Party leader Avigdor Liberman is holding out for the job of defense minister, which Netanyahu does not intend to give him.

Netanyahu wants to keep his outgoing defense minister, foreign minister and economy minister in their posts, an Israeli TV report said Friday night.

Israeli TV and newspapers have been rife with speculation in the past three days over who will get which portfolio in the next government. Channel 2 news Friday night said Jewish Home’s Naftali Bennett also wants the defense role for himself and the education portfolio for a party colleague, and that Liberman might not join the coalition at all if he doesn’t get the defense post.

Netanyahu’s preference, the report said, is to retain Likud colleague Moshe Ya’alon as defense minister, leave Liberman at the Foreign Ministry and keep Bennett at the Economy Ministry — an arrangement certain to be unacceptable to Bennett.

Moshe Kahlon, the former Likud minister whose new Kulanu party won 10 seats, has demanded the post of finance minister in the new government, but is also said to seek other positions of influence for party members, including the chair of the powerful Knesset Finance Committee and responsibility for aspects of housing and construction.

Shas leader Aryeh Deri is tipped in some quarters for the Interior Ministry, although centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on Saturday urged Netanyahu not to give it to him, since Deri has served time for bribe-taking.

Shas did not take Lapid’s comments lying down, saying in a statement Saturday evening that it was “done taking orders from the gentleman.

“The worst finance minister in the history of the State of Israel dares to reproach (us), after he crippled tens of thousands of families and brought them to the breadline,” the party responded. “After two years of amateurish economic leadership, the people of Israel deserve an experienced leadership.”

Rivlin’s discussions will begin on Sunday and continue until Monday. On Sunday representatives of Likud will meet Rivlin first. They will be followed by representatives of Zionist Union, the Joint (Arab) List, Jewish Home, Shas and finally United Torah Judaism. On Monday, representatives of Yesh Atid will be first to meet Rivlin, followed by Kulanu, Yisrael Beytenu and Meretz.

Rivlin is widely believed to have favored a “unity government,” pairing both Netanyahu’s Likud and Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union, but would seem to have little leeway in formally charging Netanyahu with the task of forming the new government.