Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz asserts that he will be the one forming and leading a unity government, rejecting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer for the centrist alliance to join a government headed by the Likud leader.
“I am interested and intend to form a broad, liberal unity government under my leadership,” Gantz says in a statement ahead of Blue and White’s first faction meeting since winning 33 seats (according to the latest count) in yesterday’s election — two more than Netanyahu’s Likud.
“To form a unity government you do not come forward with political blocs and spins but rather honesty, statesmanship, responsibility and seriousness,” Gantz says, referring to the political bloc deal Netanyahu inked hours earlier with the leaders of UTJ, Shas and Yamina.
The leaders of the right-wing religious parties agreed to enter coalition negotiations as one unit led by Netanyahu.
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