Israeli Elections
“This is the time to let new forces break out and lead,” says Peretz, Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs Minister.
The social equality minister is the ninth lawmaker to leave Blue and White in the past two weeks.
Attorney Michal Diamant will be a member of the team preparing the party’s judicial system reforms, according to party head Gideon Sa’ar.
The Israeli prime minister will be able to name officials to the fifth or 10th place on Likud’s Knesset list for the March 23 election, as well as to slots number 26, 28, 36, 39 and 40.
As many as five different parties, ranging from Yamina to Yesh Atid, had been courting the former military chief.
For the first time since its inception in the 1960s, in the March elections Israel’s Labor Party may fail to pass the electoral threshold.
In a first since its inception in the 1960s, Labor is not expected to secure the four Knesset seats required to pass the electoral threshold.
The next round, slated for March 23, will take place amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the corruption trial of the prime minister.
Additional lawmakers are expected to make similar announcements in the coming days as another election seems imminent.
Following the recent high-profile cyber attack on a major insurance company, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s office looks to safeguard the integrity of the voting process.
Given the interviews that the defense minister and opposition leader gave over the weekend, it appears that a path to a renewed partnership between the two former allies is particularly unlikely.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of undermining the power-sharing agreement that both Likud, and Blue and White, had formed earlier this year.
