Following weeks of political intrigue, the Israeli parliament is set to vote Sunday on whether to install a ‘change’ coalition and end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s record 12 consecutive years in power.
Announcing the date for the confidence vote, speaker Yariv Levin, a Netanyahu ally, said on Tuesday ‘a special session of parliament’ would debate and vote on the fragile eight-party alliance, after the country’s fourth inconclusive election in two years back in March.
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Africa Today News, New York gathered that the prime minister’s office had later announced that a march by Jewish nationalists through Jerusalem would go ahead in a week’s time, potentially de-escalating tensions with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group which went to war with the Jewish state for 11 days last month.
Israeli right-wing groups had the day before cancelled plans for the controversial march, originally due to take place this Thursday, citing Israeli police restrictions, and as Hamas warned that the route could spark new violence.
Divisive incumbent Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics for more than a decade, pushing it firmly to the right.
If Sunday’s crunch parliamentary vote hands a majority to the coalition, which is united only by hostility to Netanyahu’s rule, it would spell the end of an era.
Since the nascent coalition was announced last week, Netanyahu has lived up to his reputation as a ruthless political operator, piling pressure on right-wingers within its ranks to reject this ‘dangerous left-wing government’.
The anti-Netanyahu bloc includes three right-wing, two centrist and two left-wing parties, along with an Arab Islamic conservative party.
On paper, it commands a wafer-thin majority, but Netanyahu has urged his supporters to shame right-wing lawmakers into walking away from the prospective alliance.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK