Golan to meet with Eisenkot, Lapid tomorrow for coalition talks

In his first interview since election polls closed last night, Yair Golan, chair of the left-wing The Democrats, says he plans to meet with three party leaders tomorrow for talks on forming a government, but does not say who.

Two of the leaders will be Gadi Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate and chair of the Yashar party, and Yair Lapid, the number-two in the opposition B’Yachad party.

Golan is part of a four-party bloc of Zionist opposition parties and is the only one of its leaders to publicly support joining a coalition with Arab parties.

“I hope to meet with all of them by Sunday,” Golan tells Channel 12. Asked whether Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman would be among those he is meeting tomorrow, Golan declines to name names.

Golan says he will work to persuade the other leaders that they share “an overarching mission: to bring hope to the people of Israel.”

He says forming a government is necessary to address security concerns, stop the current government’s judicial overhaul and offer hope to young people, who are “asking whether they even want to live in this country.”

According to current election tallies, neither the Jewish-led opposition bloc nor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc has a clear path to forming a majority government, in part due to high turnout among Arab voters. Arab-led parties are expected to win a record 19 seats in the Knesset.