Israeli lawmakers have voted to dissolve parliament and set the country on the path to a second election within months, after right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to put together a ruling coalition before a midnight deadline.
In April Netanyahu appeared set for a fifth term after his Likud Party won 35 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, even though he faces possible indictment in three corruption cases. He has denied any wrongdoing and accused his opponents of mounting a witch-hunt.
But despite weeks of negotiations he failed to overcome divisions between secular and religious allies and in the early hours of Thursday, parliament voted by 74-45 to dissolve itself, setting a new election for September 17.
The unprecedented vote was prompted by Netanyahu’s failure to reach a coalition deal even though his Likud party along with its right-wing and religious allies won a majority in the April 9 election.
Reporting from West Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett said Netanyahu worked until the deadline but failed to find a formula that would have given him a majority in parliament.
“The scenes in the Israeli parliament today have been quite astounding. Benjamin Netanyahu was trying all he could to avert this situation, even offering the centre-left Labour party positions in the government. They rejected that. He tried, at the last minute, to get his longtime political associate Avigdor Lieberman on board.
“Netanyahu eventually decided that his best option was to go to another election, rather than allow the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to try to get somebody else to potentially form a coalition instead.”
from Update News Topic http://bit.ly/2Xcwh9q
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