Yariv Levin says Likud seeks to rapidly form new government

Yariv Levin, confidant to Likud’s leader and party faction chief, says that his party will endeavor to rapidly form Israel’s next government, amid reports that party leader Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing parties to form a government as early as next week.

“We will make an effort to form the government as quickly as possible,” Levin says at the president’s Jerusalem residence, shortly after delivering his party’s recommendation that Netanyahu be tapped to form the next government.

Likud lawmaker Eli Cohen, in the party’s delegation to President Isaac Herzog, says that the government will be formed “in the coming weeks,” in remarks following Levin’s.

In preparation, Netanyahu has spent Wednesday in a series of meetings with party leaders from his right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc, in order to hammer out government positions, policy and budgetary promises.