For the first time in years, Benjamin Netanyahu is not the man holding the pen in Israeli coalition talks. President Isaac Herzog said on Saturday night that he will give the mandate to build a government to Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief who led the opposition campaign, with a formal handover scheduled for Sunday evening at the presidential residence.
The numbers from this week’s consultations left Herzog little room. Sixty-seven lawmakers, Arab-led factions among them, named Eisenkot as their choice; just 46 backed the sitting prime minister. Yet nobody controls a majority. When ballots were counted after October 27, the incumbent’s coalition of nationalist and religious parties stood at 53 seats in the 120-member chamber. The challenger’s alliance reached 48, with 21 of those belonging to Yashar, while Arab-majority lists posted their best showing ever at 19.
Eisenkot now has four weeks, extendable by two, and an awkward arithmetic problem. Partnering with Arab factions is off the table, he insists. Bringing in the two ultra-Orthodox groups, Shas and United Torah Judaism, would give him precisely 61 votes, and UTJ has already signalled it is open to the idea after refusing to endorse Netanyahu. Either route could force broken campaign pledges.
Eisenkot framed his goal as a “national emergency government.” Netanyahu, meanwhile, urged a unity cabinet under his own leadership, an overture his rival dismissed as spin.
Should Eisenkot fail, Herzog may turn to a second nominee, and after that a Knesset majority can put forward a third. Three failed attempts would send the country back to the polls inside three months, and Netanyahu would keep running a caretaker cabinet until then.
