| Share

Israel

Index

Netanyahu Calls for Early Elections

In a speech on May 6, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for early elections. The speech was in response to unrest among his coalition as well as his opponents. In the speech, Netanyahu vowed to "form the broadest government that is possible." The official reason for early elections was the upcoming expiration of the Tal Law, which exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews from Israeli Army service. However, some election analysts believed that Netanyahu wanted to act swiftly while his Likud Party was polling strongly.

On May 8, two days after the call for early elections, Netanyahu formed a unity government with Shaul Mofaz, the newly elected chief of Kadima, the opposition party. The new coalition gave Netanyahu a very large legislative majority. It also ended the need for early elections. Mofaz was made deputy prime minister under the terms of the agreement. Some saw the new coalition as a way for Netanyahu to gain even more political power. More than 1,000 people marched in Tel Aviv to protest the alliance. Among the demonstrators was former Kadima chief, Tzipi Livni. A week earlier, after losing her position as both leader of the opposition and chief of the Kadima Party, Livni resigned from Parliament. Of her resignation, Livni said she was not "willing to sell the country to the ultra-Orthodox in order to form a government." She also said that she didn't regret focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during her tenure as leader of the opposition even though it wasn't "in vogue right now."

The new coalition was one of the largest in Israel's history. Netanyahu promised that the coalition would rewrite the Tal Law, pass a budget, revise the electoral process by the end of 2012 and move forward on the peace process.

The new unity coalition turned out to be short-lived. In July 2012, Kadima left the coalition. Kadima chief Mofaz said his party pulled out due to irreconcilable differences with Netanyahu over the pending universal draft law.