BICOM

Following yesterday’s election, preliminary talks between party leaders are expected to begin immediately over forming a coalition government.

Although the Central Elections Commission will only officially submit the final results next week, President Shimon Peres is likely to begin consultations with party leaders about who he should ask to form the next government over the coming days. Citing sources at the president’s residence, Haaretz speculates that Peres could ask Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government by the end of the week.

In order for Netanyahu or any other leader to construct a coalition of at least 61 Knesset members, feverish talks are expected to begin today. With the Knesset equally divided between the right-wing and religious bloc and the centrist and left-wing bloc, Netanyahu will need to look beyond his natural constituency of right-wing and religious parties if he is to form a government. This would appear to give the centrist parties and in particular Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which is now the second largest party in the Knesset, enormous leverage to place conditions on joining a coalition.

Assuming that Likud-Beitenu and Yesh Atid form the core of the next coalition, they will have a range of smaller parties to consider bringing in to take them over the 60 seat threshold. These include on the right, Naftali Bennet’s Jewish Home (11) as well as the ultra-Orthodox Shas (11) and UTJ (7), and on the left, Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua (6) and Shaul Mofaz’s shrunken Kadima (2).

Meanwhile, Labour Party leader Shelly Yachimovich has said she will not join a Netanyahu led coalition, and will try to engineer an alternative centre-left coalition by reaching out to the ultra-Orthodox parties. Such a manoeuvre, however, seems unlikely to succeed.