Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett announced on Saturday night that after the results of Tuesday’s election are made public, he will call Binyamin Netanyahu and suggest a “unified technical bloc” of at least 35 seats with the Likud. That bloc would then go to President Reuven Rivlin and recommend Netanyahu for Prime Minister.
The Likud was unimpressed with Bennett’s offer, however, saying that the only way to ensure that Netanyahu remains Prime Minister after the election is for the Likud to be a big party with enough seats to ensure a stable government.
“The term ‘technical bloc’ simply does not exist in the electoral system in Israel and will not affect the question of who will head the next government. Only closing the gap between Likud and Labor will prevent Buji and Tzipi from establishing a leftist government with the support of the Arabs. Only a vote for a large Likud will ensure the establishment of a nationalist government headed by Netanyahu with its natural partners led by the Jewish Home,” the Likud said.
Netanyahu warned last week that a Likud victory in the election “is far from certain” and added, “People who are considering voting for another party in the nationalist camp must have this explained to them – you should know that there is a real possibility that if this gap between the Likud and the Labor party will grow, we may wake up in a week and find Tzipi and Buji as Prime Ministers of Israel.”
Bennett, for his part, has said that if the Jewish Home does not win enough seats, it could be left out of the coalition in favor of leftist parties.
Earlier Saturday, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan said that the first party to join a Likud coalition after the elections will be the Jewish Home, who are Likud’s “natural partners.”
“My preference,” Erdan added, “is a government – assuming that Bibi will form it – with Bennett, haredim, [Moshe] Kahlon and [Avigdor] Liberman, and after that – I do not rule out anyone, on the condition that he adopt the basic principles of the government under Likud.”
