JERUSALEM
\nBenjamin Netanyahu\u2019s main rival secured nods on Thursday from a majority of lawmakers to try to form a government, but Israel\u2019s president said it was still unclear who could break the election deadlock as he pledged to nominate a candidate on Sunday.
\nIsrael\u2019s October 27 national ballot ended with no clear winner. Neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief, secured a clear path to a majority in parliament.
\nThat has set up a tough task for President Isaac Herzog, whose mostly ceremonial role comes with the post-election responsibility of picking a candidate he believes has the best chance to form a coalition in a deeply divided country.
\nHerzog held marathon talks with elected factions on Wednesday and Thursday, during which 67 of parliament\u2019s 120 elected lawmakers endorsed Eisenkot, while 46 endorsed Netanyahu.
\nIn televised remarks at the end of the talks, Herzog said that while the \u201cresults of the consultations may appear clear\u201d, there were \u201cmutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves\u201d that make it difficult to say who has the best shot to form a government.
\nHerzog said he would make a pick on Sunday, and that he would hold \u201cpersonal talks with some of the party leaders\u201d over the Israeli weekend, which runs Friday-Saturday.
\nOnce nominated by Herzog, the candidate will have 28 days to try to forge a government, with a possible 14-day extension. Netanyahu will remain prime minister in a caretaker government until a new coalition is formed, or through another election which must be held if no candidate succeeds.
\nNetanyahu\u2019s Likud won the most seats of any single party with 27 in the 120-seat Knesset, but Netanyahu\u2019s wider religious-nationalist coalition garnered only 53 in total.
\nThat was still better than Eisenkot\u2019s anti-Netanyahu coalition spanning four centre-left to right-wing Jewish-led parties, which won just 48 seats despite pre-election polls pointing to a close race.
\nTwo parties representing Israel\u2019s Arab minority won an unprecedented 19 seats.
\nIn a setback for the prime minister on Thursday, United Torah Judaism, one of two major parties representing ultra-Orthodox Jewish voters and a longstanding Netanyahu coalition ally, declined to recommend any candidate to form a government during talks with Herzog. And while Eisenkot, like Netanyahu, has so far ruled out forming a government with Israel\u2019s two Arab-led parties, both factions endorsed Eisenkot, giving him backing from a comfortable majority of lawmakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JERUSALEM Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s main rival secured nods on Thursday from a majority of lawmakers to try to form a government, but Israel\u2019s president said it was still unclear who could break the election deadlock as he pledged to nominate a candidate on Sunday. Israel\u2019s October 27 national ballot ended with no clear winner. Neither Prime …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105505,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105484\/revisions\/105505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}