Opposition plans filibuster to block expanded cabinet

Knesset members in the opposition said on Monday they planned to filibuster a debate later in the day on an amendment to a law limiting the number of ministers, in an effort to block Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from expanding his cabinet.

The change sought by Netanyahu to Basic Law: The Government would remove a recently passed amendment that set a limit of 18 ministers. Netanyahu has said he seeks to increase the cabinet by two ministers and four deputy ministers.

However, opponents of the amendment have pledged to stage filibusters — a tactic in which politicians force lengthy debate on a matter to greatly delay proceedings — in order to draw out the process, which was scheduled to begin at 4. p.m. local time. The debate is on the first of the bill’s required three readings.

“I hope (your reporter) brings a sleeping bag,” MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union) told Army Radio.

Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein, who is from Netanyahu’s Likud party, conceded that the debate was likely to be lengthy.

“The opposition will be given time for debate,” he said. “I don’t think that this legislation will be completed by tomorrow. There are 59 opposition MKs — I shall give them time both today and tomorrow to express their reservations.”

But Edelstein also said that time would not be unlimited.

“We have to form a government in Israel. If there is a majority it will be formed; if not then apparently somebody else will need to get the task of trying,” he said, referring to the idea that if Netanyahu fails to secure a coalition comprising the majority of the Knesset’s 120 members, the leader of another party may be tasked with the effort.

The bill upping the number of ministers was green-lighted on Sunday by the outgoing 33rd government — which remains in office until the swearing-in of the new cabinet, which was originally slated for Wednesday.

Earlier on Monday, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition to freeze Netanyahu’s planned expansion of the cabinet. The court ruling was a blow to the Yesh Atid party, which petitioned the legal body on Sunday to issue a staying order against the legislation.

Yesh Atid Knesset faction chair MK Ofer Shelah had filed the petition on Sunday, asking the court to issue an interim injunction to stop the Knesset from being able to vote on the measure.

The bill under consideration would delay the implementation of a major 2014 government reform bill which amended the constitutional Basic Law: The Government, limiting the cabinet to 19 members, including the prime minister, plus four deputy ministers, and outlawing the institution of ministers-without-portfolio.

Before the debate began on Monday, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid slammed the proposed cabinet expansion. During his term in the cabinet in the previous government, Lapid had helped push into law the restrictions on the number of ministers.

“The prime minister carried out a coup and took advantage of the last meeting of the transitional government to change the Basic Law, even though he has no right or authority to do that,” Lapid said according to the Hebrew-language Ynet website. “This coup is a despicable exploitation of the Knesset and a measly way to begin the government’s operations.”

Yesh Atid’s challenge was not the only hurdle the bill faces. The center-left Zionist Union’s Knesset faction chair MK Eitan Cabel sent a letter Sunday from the party’s Ramat Gan attorneys at Marienberg Baron to Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein warning that the party could resort to legal action against the expansion of the cabinet.

The Zionist Union outlined a legal case similar to Yesh Atid’s: The original Basic Law amendment stipulates that the cabinet size limitation could be overcome with the approval of 70 MKs. But since the new coalition, with its razor-thin 61-59 majority, cannot find the necessary votes in the current Knesset, the coalition is resorting to simply delaying the date in which the Basic Law goes into effect — a vote that requires just 61 votes.