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The Telegraph
Israel on brink of fourth election in two years after last minute bid for compromise fails
Israel is on the verge of calling its fourth election in two years after Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and his coalition partner Benny Gantz failed to agree on a budget. Late on Monday night the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, voted against providing the two ministers with more time to find a compromise, beginning the countdown to the collapse of the government at midnight on Tuesday. Unless an 11th hour deal has been reached, which experts say is highly unlikely, new elections will be called and are expected to be held in March 2021. Should the elections go ahead, Mr Netanyahu faces another bitter struggle to save his political career as he grapples with mass protests, a corruption trial and a weary electorate that has little appetite for more polls. He must also contend with a new, right-wing rival in Gideon Sa’ar, a former minister in Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party who registered his own breakaway movement New Hope earlier this month. According to a statement on the party’s website, New Hope will be pro-settlement and in favour of reforming the judiciary, policies that could lure many of Mr Netanyahu’s own right-wing supporters. According to some recent polls, New Hope is projected to win some 19 seats in the next election, which would make it the second largest party in the Knesset, and prevent Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc from winning a majority. The same polls suggest that Likud will still emerge as the largest party in the Knesset, but also point to a growing cross-party alliance that aims above all to unseat Mr Netanyahu. Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gantz, the defence minister and leader of the centrist Blue and White faction, established a unity government in May after three inconclusive elections. The coalition deal involved Mr Gantz taking over from Mr Netanyahu as prime minister in November 2021, and passing a bi-annual budget for 2020 and 2021 as part of a power-sharing deal. Since then, Likud has demanded to pass the budgets separately, while Blue and White have insisted Mr Netanyahu sticks to their deal, opening the rift which led to the threat of more elections.
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