Lapid proposes six month ‘political freeze’

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, the emerging opposition leader, proposes a six-month “political freeze” to combat the coronavirus pandemic and prevent fourth elections.

“So I’m going back to a proposal I suggested before – a simple, clean proposal. To freeze everything for six months. This house will vote to amend clause 10 of Basic Law: The Government and we will go to a freeze. The legality of it has been checked and the proposal was formally tabled earlier today. The country needs stability. We have to avoid fourth elections.

“We will go to six months of a political freeze. In six months we’ll come back to the same situation. In those six months, instead of dealing with politics we will work to save the economy and the health care system and people’s lives. In those six months, the transitional government will continue. I think it’s a bad government but it won’t be able to do whatever it wants because we’ll control the Knesset. The Knesset will have teeth and it will have a majority,” he says.

He adds: “A freeze isn’t ideal. It’s not what we wanted. But it’s better than crawling into a corrupt government. It’s definitely better than fourth elections. The citizens of Israel are at risk. They need to know that their politicians aren’t focused on themselves, but on them. They mostly need to know that we’re working for them. Let’s freeze the politics and get to work.”