The various parties will soon begin their procession of meetings with President Reuven Rivlin, before he decides who to task with trying to form the next government. In an ideal world, in which our government functioned on the basis of healthy logic and reason, the president would never even require such "consultations." He would only have to look at the election results. Netanyahu, as the leader of the largest party by a wide margin, should be the natural, not to mention logical candidate to form the next government.
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The pundits in the news studios, however, have uttered Gideon Sa'ar as a candidate to form the government. Yes, the same failure whose hopes of succeeding Netanyahu were diminished to six mandates. Sa'ar, not Netanyahu, whose Likud party is several times the size of the now-deflated New Hope party. Rivlin could very well struggle to come to terms with the realization, as of this writing, that he must tab Netanyahu, his bitter rival, with the task. This is simply a fact of the president's relationship with the prime minister. Some pundits have even noted Rivlin's anxiety ahead of the decision due to his aversion to Netanyahu and the job he has done. And the anxiety is only getting worse.
Netanyahu's haters are restless: They want to capitalize on the twilight of Rivlin's presidency. Some have intimated he should resign to avoid having to assign the task of forming the next government to Netanyahu if he secures enough recommendations. These pressures are part of a rather ugly campaign to politicize the office of the president. And if Rivlin grants the Netanyahu haters their wish, he will go down in history as having tarnished the office. All of this, of course, depends on Netanyahu's ability to secure a majority of recommendations from the other party leaders.
When Rivlin's tenure ends in July, will his successor also face pressure to appoint a candidate based on political considerations, rather than the number of recommendations he garners, as per his obligation? To the best of everyone's knowledge, Rivlin will reject the terrible advice to resign. Similar to the past, he will ask Netanyahu to form the government, if the reality calls for it. On his recent visit to Europe, Rivlin praised Netanyahu for his efforts against the coronavirus. Hence, it appears the president will not end his seven years in office with a controversial bang.
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