Renegade Yamina MK seeks to delay hearing on his official ouster

Yamina MK Amichai Chikli, who refused to join the coalition when it was formed last year, is seeking to delay a hearing on the party’s decision to formally label him as a defector, which comes with a raft of sanctions.

While Chikli has largely voted with the opposition since the government was formed, Yamina did not take formal action against him — hoping to preserve the possibility of working together — until fellow Yamina MK Idit Silman announced her own defection last week.

Now, Chikli asks the Knesset House Committee to delay a hearing slated for later this month that would formally label him as a defector and prevent him from running in the future with any other faction currently in the Knesset.

In his appeal to the committee, Chikli writes that the hearing is being rushed because of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s attempts to harm him, but “we are still a democratic country, and he is not a king or a sultan.”