June 30, 2022
Israel’s parliament voted Thursday to dissolve itself, marking the end of a year-old experimental coalition government, and sending the country to the polls in November for the fifth time in less than four years.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister and architect of the outgoing coalition government, will become the country’s caretaker prime minister just after midnight on Friday.
He will be the 14th person to hold that office, taking over from Naftali Bennett, Israel’s shortest serving prime minister.
Following the vote, Lapid embraced Bennett before the two swapped chairs. He posted, “thanks, Naftali, my brother” on Twitter.
The government collapsed just over a year after it was formed in a historic move that saw longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu ousted after 12 years in power by a coalition of ideologically diverse parties, the first to include an Arab faction.
The motion to dissolve passed with 92 lawmakers in favor, and none against, after days of bickering by coalition and opposition lawmakers over the date of new elections and other last-minute legislation.
New elections will be held on Nov. 1.
The move brings a formal end to a political experiment in which eight parties from across the Israeli spectrum tried to find common ground after a period of prolonged gridlock in which the country held four elections in two years.
The upcoming elections are an extension of Israel’s protracted political crisis, at the heart of which sits Netanyahu and his ongoing corruption trial.
The four deadlocked elections in the previous three years were largely referendums on Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while facing charges of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.
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