Israel’s president asks Gadi Eisenkot to form government instead of Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel’s president has asked opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to form the country’s next government, passing over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The choice is a formal mandate to try to assemble a governing coalition, not an automatic transfer of power: Eisenkot still has to gather enough backing among parties that have aligned against Netanyahu.
That alignment is the political story behind the appointment. Opposition to Netanyahu has pulled together different political parties that might otherwise compete with one another, and they have coalesced behind Eisenkot’s bid rather than leaving the incumbent as the president’s first choice to form a government. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh has described how that shared opposition, rather than a single shared platform, brought those parties together.
For readers outside Israel, the sequence is the usual one after an election or a government crisis: the president selects a candidate judged most able to command a majority, then that candidate negotiates with parties to build a cabinet. Here the president judged Eisenkot, not Netanyahu, to be that candidate. Whether Eisenkot succeeds depends on whether those parties can convert their common stance against the prime minister into a working coalition. Until they do, Netanyahu remains in office as prime minister while Eisenkot attempts to form the next government.
Continue in the app — vote & join in ➔