Chances of third Israeli election rise after Netanyahu rival fails to form coalition

Chances for a third Israeli election in less than a year rose on Wednesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival announced he would miss a deadline to form a ruling coalition. 

Benny Gantz, the leader of the centrist Kahol Lavan party, announced that he was unable to put together a government by Wednesday’s midnight deadline following Netanyahu’s own failure to do so.

The Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, now starts a 21-day period in which it can try to nominate any one of its 120 lawmakers to try and establish a coalition.

Should that effort fail, an election is triggered within 90 days, sending Israelis to the polls for an unprecedented third time in under a year.

Gantz said he had turned over every possible stone in the 28-day period he was allotted to form a coalition but expressed confidence that his support would grow in a third election, according to a translation of his comments by The Hill.

Kahol Lavan won 33 out of 120 Knesset seats and Likud won 31 seats in parliamentary elections in September, the second such election of the year.

Gantz’s bloc, comprised of other centrist and center-left parties, won 57 seats in total, while Netanyahu’s bloc, made up of other right-wing and ultra-Orthodox groups, won 55, denying either side a parliamentary majority. 

Netanyahu later said he was open to crafting a unity government with Gantz, though Gantz has only expressed interest in a unity government with him at the helm.

Gantz has specifically ruled out joining a coalition with Netanyahu, who is dogged by looming corruption charges.

The impasse also shifts focus to Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the right-wing, secular Yisrael Beiteinu party. His bloc controls enough seats to give either Netanyahu or Gantz a majority, though he has objected to Netanyahu’s cooperation with ultra-Orthodox parties and claims that Gantz’s coalition would rely on support from Arab parties that he has labeled a “fifth column.”

Niv Elis contributed to this report, which was updated at 7:10 p.m.