Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman is expected to announce Sunday afternoon that his party would not recommend to President Reuven Rivlin any candidate to form the next government, Walla reported Sunday morning.
Israel Beiteinu responded to the story saying, “There is no final decision, we will discuss the issue at the faction meeting.”
Last week, Israel Beiteinu party officials explained that should neither of the two major contenders pledge to establish a small-l liberal unity government with Likud, Blue&White and Israel Beiteinu, the latter would opt out of backing anyone.
Israel Beiteinu will hold a press conference to announce its decision Sunday afternoon, and at 8 PM will walk into President Rivlin chambers to inform him of said decision.
On Friday, Liberman posted on his Facebook page that there was no agreement between himself and Blue&White chairman Benny Gantz, and that his party knows how to get by in both the coalition and the opposition.
Liberman also said that he had not talked to either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor to Gantz, and stressed that his religion and state agenda would not be compromised.
Lieberman claimed he posted this statement after hearing in the media that Blue&White had announced its agreement with Israel Beiteinu that no Gantz government would be formed without Liberman.
“First, this kind of agreement does not exist,” Liberman stated, adding, “For all those interested, I did not talk with either Netanyahu or Gantz, and I’m not going to talk to either of them until after the faction meeting on Sunday.”
The scheduled meetings between the heads of the various Knesset factions and President Rivlin are as follows:
Sunday
5:00 PM – Blue&White
5:45 PM – Likud
6:30 PM – Joint Arab List
7:15 PM – Shas
8:00 PM Israel Beiteinu
Monday
10:00 AM – United Torah Judaism
10:45 AM – Yamina
11:30 AM – Labor
12:15 PM – Democratic Camp