Coalition submits bill to dissolve Knesset and trigger elections within 5 months

Coalition whip Ofir Katz submits a bill to dissolve the Knesset and trigger elections, co-sponsored by all of the parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

The bill states that the next election will be held not less than three months from the bill’s passage and that the date of the election will be determined by the Knesset House Committee. Elections must be held within five months of the bill’s passage, which would mean by mid- to late-October at latest. Elections must in any case be held by October 27.

The bill is co-sponsored by lawmakers from the United Torah Judaism, Shas, New Hope, Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties.

A preliminary vote to dissolve the Knesset cannot be held before Monday at the earliest under Knesset rules. The opposition also supports dissolving the Knesset, and with coalition support, the bill’s passage is all but assured.

The ultra-Orthodox UTJ party’s Degel Hatorah faction announced on Tuesday that it would seek to dissolve the Knesset because of the coalition’s failure to pass a law enshrining the decades-old exemption of Haredi yeshiva students from military service.

Opposition parties submitted dissolution bills yesterday and urged Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to hold a preliminary vote as early as Wednesday, in an effort to capitalize on Degel HaTorah’s announcement.

In response, Netanyahu’s coalition began preparing competing efforts to dissolve the Knesset and trigger early elections. Katz’s bill appears to be an effort on the part of the coalition to control both the legislative process and the timing of future elections rather than letting the opposition do so.