Israeli channel: The Israeli president may mandate Bennett to form a government

Jerusalem24 – Israel’s Channel 12 television reported Tuesday evening that the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, might surprise everyone this time and assign Naftali Bennett, head of the ‘Yemina’ party, with the task of forming the new Israeli government.

The channel said that this comes after the failure of three previous election rounds to reach a stable and viable government, as President Rivlin will try to change the rules of the game by assigning a figure other than the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to form the government.

In the same context, the leader of the “New Hope” (Tikva Hadshah) party, Gideon Sa’ar, head of the “There is a future” (Yesh Atid) party, Yair Lapid, called for the public interest to prevail over the private, and the recommendation to assign Bennett the task of forming the next government.

Lapid responded  by saying that his party is willing to make concessions, which he described as painful, in an effort to change the reality, which could mean that Lapid could support a move to assign Bennett the task of forming a government, despite the latter’s party winning only 7 seats, while Lapid’s party won 17 seats.
It is expected that President Rivlin’s consultations with the parties on forming a government will start at the beginning of next week after receiving the final official results of the elections.