The Knesset on Thursday voted on its dissolution triggering what will be Israel's fifth elections in three years. The vote, carried with no objections, officially ended parliament's 24's session, setting Israel's next general elections for Nov. 1, 2022.
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Last week saw outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett call for early elections, saying that the efforts to stabilize the increasingly erratic coalition – in power for only a year – have exhausted themselves.
With the bill to disband the Knesset now officially on the books, Prime Minister-designate Yair Lapid is slated to head the caretaker government that will see Israel through the elections.
Lapid will officially take office at midnight, at which point Bennett will become the PM-designate and acting religious affairs minister, Army Radio reported Thursday.
Addressing the session, Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the elections, saying, "Some has gone fundamentally wrong in this country over the past year. … The overall feeling is that we're losing our grasp on everything all while the government that just collapsed is trying to dismiss it all and trying to sell [the public] a lie by which everything is 'well-managed.'
"This is what happens when you mix fake right with the radical left, the Muslim Brotherhood with terrorist sympathizers. This is what the elections are all about. A Likud-led government will restore hope and security to the public," he asserted.
Netanyahu's statement came on the heels of reports that Likud officials are growing impatient with him. One official told Israel Hayom that the upcoming elections would be Netanyahu's "last chance" to lead the party, hinting that if he again fails to form a government, he would have to step down as chairman – a position he has held since 1993.
"Behind closed doors, even people who are Netanyahu's greatest supporters say that they will not follow him into a sixth election campaign and he will have to step down," one official said.
Wednesday evening saw Bennett announce that he would be stepping down as head of the right-wing Yamina party and taking a break from politics altogether.
Bennett's No. 2 in the party Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked will serve as Yamina leader, but the party faces an uncertain future, as three of its current six MKs have already departed its ranks.
Shaked, for her part, has expressed optimism about Yamina's electoral prospects, tweeting a screenshot of a poll that showed Yamina is likely to garner five seats in the next election, one more than the electoral threshold required to get into the Knesset.
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