🔶 Israel’s president holds talks with parties to form a government

Yitzhak Herzog, Israel’s president, will begin his consultations for forming a government with parties that have made it into the Israeli parliament (Knesset) on Wednesday, November 4. Accordingly, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the meeting is expected to be broadcast live.

As is customary, the president will choose a nominee who, in his view, has the best chance of securing a parliamentary majority, rather than automatically nominating the leader of the largest party.

The leader of the largest party is Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel. His conservative right-wing party, Likud, became the largest parliamentary faction after winning 27 seats out of 120 in Tuesday’s parliamentary election. Gadi Eisenkot, the nominee of the opposition, also won 21 seats in the election with his newly established party, “Yesh Atid.”

Since neither the governing coalition nor the opposition bloc was able to reach the required majority of 61 seats, the election has led to a parliamentary stalemate.