Rivlin feels ‘shame’ voters forced back to polls, slams ‘awful, grubby’ campaign

Voting in Jerusalem’s Beit Hakerem neighborhood on Monday morning, President Reuven Rivlin said he was ashamed to be casting his ballot for a third time in less than a year.

“This is normally a festive day, but the truth is that I don’t feel celebratory,” he said. “I only feel a sense of deep shame when I face you, my fellow citizens.

“We simply don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve another awful and grubby election campaign like the one that ends today and we don’t deserve this never-ending instability. We deserve a government that works for us.”

Rivlin concluded by saying that he hoped Monday’s vote will be the last for a while.

“I very much hope that we meet again only in 2024, or at least that I won’t see another election campaign as president of the country that is so dear to us all.”

https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/iVbVFxNQ-U4CTA3JQ

After two inconclusive elections last year, opinion polls forecast another stalemate in a vote largely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will go on trial on corruption charges just two weeks after Monday’s vote. His main challenger is Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White party.

There are 6,453,255 eligible voters in Israel, though analysts fear that frustration with the political system after seemingly unending deadlock may lower turnout.

Polling in the final days before Monday’s election showed support for Likud grow slightly, with the party possibly surpassing its rival Blue and White, though the surveys indicated it is still several seats short of achieving a 61-seat Knesset majority without the support of Yisrael Beytenu.

Pundits and others have already begun to talk about a fourth vote in several months if the stalemate is not broken.

Netanyahu is seen as fighting for his political life, with indictments in three criminal cases hanging over his head. His opponents say he cannot lead the country while on trial, and it remains to be seen whether Rivlin will even have the legal backing to task him with forming a government, if Likud and its partners do well enough at the polls.

Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals in which he is accused of accepting lavish gifts from wealthy friends or exchanging favors with powerful media moguls. He has denied all the charges.

With his trial set to start March 17, he is desperate to remain in office. Netanyahu has used his position to rally public support and lash out at what he claims is a vast conspiracy by police, overzealous prosecutors and a hostile media to oust him.

Israeli law allows a prime minister to remain in office even if charged with a crime, while requiring other public officials to resign once indicted.