Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly mulling over a legal way to cancel the upcoming election rerun set for this September 17.
According to a report broadcast by Channel 12, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein may have found a legal way to reverse the dispersal of the Knesset, despite a previous assessment by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit that it wasn’t possible.
“The public doesn’t want to go to elections, and the Knesset’s job is to represent the public,” the Speaker said. “Going to an election when it could be canceled is going against the public.”
However, the plan requires the support of at least 80 Knesset members. The Knesset Presidium would have to be convened to cancel the current parliamentary recess. The Knesset would have to return to session and a new law introduced, allowing the legislative body to cancel the upcoming elections.
A minimum two-thirds majority of the Knesset – 80 lawmakers – is required to get this done, if it’s at all possible.
And that’s without going through the process of having to once again struggle with building a new coalition . . .
Netanyahu has not yet given a green light to the plan, which may require his forming a government together with his avowed rival, the Blue and White Party – if not even possibly with the very individual who brought down the last government, Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman.
The Likud party released a statement Tuesday evening saying Netanyahu “treats Knesset Speaker Edelstein with great respect, and he will consider his proposal in the days ahead.”