Meretz chairwoman Tamar Zandberg says opposition lawmakers plan to speak at Israel's parliamentary session at least until Wednesday midnight in order to prevent a vote to dissolve the Knesset and instead allow for President Reuven Rivlin to name a new candidate to form a governing coalition.
"We're prepared for a filibuster of at least three days, which is the maximum amount of time for the president to task another Knesset member with forming a government," she said. "If they try to limit speaking time in order to prevent it, we won't hesitate to go to the Supreme Court."
But some commentators suggest that filibustering in the Knesset is no longer possible since the coalition can set time limits for debates.
The debate may be allowed to continue past midnight – the actual scheduled time for the vote – but may also be cut off if it is clear that the opposition is simply trying to stall the vote, a Knesset plenum speaker told i24NEWS on Wednesday.
Netanyahu is racing to dissolve the government in order to prevent another candidate from being granted the opportunity to assemble a coalition, though at the same time his Likud Party is seeking to convince Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beitenu to come around in order to help Netanyahu form a 65-majority coalition and swear in a government.
However, thus far Liberman has seemed bent on dragging out the issue of the haredi conscription bill, which sets mandatory quotas, as he continues to emphasize it as a matter of principle on which there is no compromise.
It seems likely that Blue & White co-chair Benny Gantz would be next in line for the opportunity to form a coalition since his party tied with Likud for the number of seats allotted in Knesset.
On the other hand, there was speculation that Liberman could be given the chance to form a coalition since the left-wing bloc seems outnumbered by the right-wing.
Meanwhile, the Likud Party decided on Tuesday afternoon to merge with the centrist Kulanu Party, which could reportedly see Kulanu head Moshe Kahlon fill the fifth place on a joint list if snap elections are called.
The deal would give Kulanu the last five seats on the Likud's list, which may cause the current Likud members at the end of the list to vote against the dissolution of the coalition to avoid their potential ouster.
On the other hand, the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta'al party, which abstained in the first reading of the bill, could support dissolving the government in the final votes in the plenum in order to keep the government from setting up shop and thereby delaying the introduction of the U..S peace plan.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS. Read more at https://www.i24news.tv/en.
