JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli coalition government will speed up a bill this week to dissolve parliament by organizing the country for its fifth election in three years, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced on Monday that he would dissolve his alliance of eight ideologically different parties a year after taking office and send the country to the polls. A series of retreats from his Yamina party deprived the coalition of its majority in the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset.
Bennett cited the coalition’s failure earlier this month to extend a law that gives West Bank settlers a special legal status as a major impetus for new elections. His main ally, Foreign Minister Jair Lapid, will serve as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed following elections in October.
Welfare Minister Meir Cohen, a member of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, told Israeli public television in Cannes that the coalition would submit the bill to a preliminary vote on Wednesday.
“We hope to complete the process within a week,” Cohen said. “The intention is to end as soon as possible and go to the polls.”
A parliamentary committee has approved a preliminary vote to dissolve parliament on Wednesday, with a final vote expected early next week.
New elections increase the chance that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now the opposition leader, may return. Netanyahu was ousted from an eight-party alliance after four unconvincing elections that were largely seen as referendums on his suitability to rule. The alliance’s factions range from liberal pigeons, opponents of Israeli settlements, to ultranationalist hawks who reject Palestinian statehood. Only their opposition to Netanyahu brought them together.
Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption, but has denied any wrongdoing, dismissing accusations of hunting witches by his political opponents. Israeli law does not explicitly state that a politician who is accused cannot become prime minister.
As politicians prepare for the autumn elections, several coalition members have proposed passing a law ahead of the dissolution of the Knesset that would ban a lawmaker accused of being prime minister.
Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said his party’s Israel Beitenu goal in the upcoming election was “to prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from returning to power”. Along with a bill to dissolve parliament, he said he would propose legislation Wednesday that would ban an MP on charges of taking over as prime minister.
“I hope that this bill will also find a majority,” he told an economic conference hosted by the Israel Institute for Democracy.
Justice Minister Gideon Saar, leader of the New Hope party, told Army Radio that his faction had backed such a bill and would vote in favor if it was submitted to parliament.
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