Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman on Wednesday morning strongly reiterated his insistence on a unity government comprising his party, Blue and White, and Likud, but said he wouldn’t start coalition negotiations with any party unless it accepts his list of demands for secularist policy changes.
Liberman, who according to TV exit polls as well as the preliminary vote count could be the kingmaker since no bloc has a majority without him, appeared outside his home in the settlement of Nokdim, offering reporters a promise that he would not allow a third round of elections and would not waste time haggling.
The unofficial results, counting some 90 percent of the votes, showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party will not be able to form a coalition of ultra-Orthodox and right-wing parties without Yisrael Beytenu, which according to Channel 12 has won nine seats in the 120-member Knesset. Throughout its campaign, the secular, right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party has said it would refuse to serve in a government with the ultra-Orthodox and has also heavily criticized far-right politicians as “messianists.”
Netanyahu’s chief rival Blue and White and other parties on the center and left are also seen as unable to form a coalition without the support of Liberman. READ MORE
