He may not have received the most votes in Israel’s election last week, but Benjamin Netanyahu clearly has the best chance of becoming Israel’s next prime minister. If he is tapped by Israeli President Shimon Peres to form the next government, the big question is whether Netanyahu will seek a centrist government or a narrow coalition of hard-liners. His decision could determine whether Israel presses ahead with Mideast peace talks or heads toward a possible clash with President Barack Obama.
Netanyahu’s party, Likud, lost out to the centrist Kadima party by one seat. But the mathematics of Israel’s 120-seat Parliament, split among 12 parties and dominated by the hard-liners who are Netanyahu’s natural allies, show that only Netanyahu has a real chance of mustering the majority needed to form a government. That has only become more clear as Peres prepares to begin consultations today leading up to his choice of a candidate to form the next government. The consultations are expected to last several days.
With one exception since Israel was founded, the president has always picked the leader of the biggest party. But last week’s election results present a unique quandary. Despite leading the largest party, Kadima’s leader Tzipi Livni is not the one with the best chance of cobbling together a coalition. Netanyahu is.
Netanyahu has two options. He can put together a narrow coalition of hard-line and religious Jewish parties, which would allow him to govern with 65 seats. Or he could reach out to Livni, his rival, in an attempt to form a centrist coalition. Those options suggest very different paths.
The first government would likely freeze peace talks with the Palestinians, draw international pressure — including from Obama, who has promised to “aggressively” pursue Mideast peace — and face dissatisfaction from large parts of the Israeli public. Such pressures could make the government short-lived.
The second would probably continue some form of negotiations and would certainly enjoy broader internal and international support, but could also be deadlocked between the hard-liners of Likud, who rule out territorial concessions to the Palestinians, and the more moderate lawmakers of Kadima, whose platform calls for pressing ahead with peace talks.
Netanyahu has said he would prefer a coalition with Livni. In a narrow government, his smaller partners would have veto power over major decisions, because they would be able to topple the government at will. But Netanyahu “does not want to be the extreme left-winger in the government, which he more or less would be in such a scenario,” said Hebrew University political scientist Peter Medding.
But Livni has indicated she would join a government only if Netanyahu shares the prime minister’s job in a rotation arrangement. So far, Netanyahu has ruled that out.
Livni’s Kadima party edged out Netanyahu’s Likud in the election, winning 28 seats to his 27. She delivered a victory speech and has been actively pursuing potential coalition partners. But in reality, Livni’s only concrete chance of being in the government is in a power-sharing arrangement with her rival.
The wild card in the post-election jockeying is Avigdor Lieberman, who ran on an anti-Arab platform and turned his party into the third biggest in Parliament, with 15 seats.
A caricature in yesterday’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper showed Netanyahu and Livni sweating as they play musical chairs, with a grinning Lieberman’s finger on the tape deck. Lieberman can’t crown Livni — she doesn’t have enough seats even with his support — but he can block Netanyahu, who can’t form his hard-line coalition without him. “Lieberman is the tiebreaker,” political analyst Hanan Crystal said.
