Israel: Herzog to announce government formateur on Sunday

Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced that he would designate on Sunday 8 November the figure tasked with trying to form a new government, at the end of consultations with all party leaders held after the 27 October legislative elections. Sixty-seven parliamentarians recommended opposition figure Gadi Eisenkot, against 46 for outgoing Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and seven abstained, according to Africanews.

"The results of the consultations may appear clear, but the authority the law confers on me is to determine who has the capacity to form a government, and that is not entirely clear, given the mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves," Isaac Herzog said on Thursday. He said he wanted to decide "directly and quickly", in personal talks with some party leaders. Tradition dictates that the mandate goes to the figure recommended by the largest number of parliamentarians.

Eisenkot's party, Yashar, said that "the citizens of Israel have chosen change and expressed total distrust of outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government", and called for the immediate formation of a national emergency government. The two Arab lists, which won 19 seats, a record, announced on Thursday that they supported Eisenkot, but Israel Beiteinu, the right-wing party in his coalition, repeated that it would not sit in a government dependent on their support; its leader Avigdor Liberman cites their refusal to explicitly call Hamas a "terrorist group".

Another sign of fragmentation, the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism, which had supported Netanyahu after the previous five elections, this time refused to recommend him, without however lining up behind Eisenkot.