Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced he would name a candidate to form the country’s next government by Sunday, after a majority of MPs backed opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Herzog made the announcement Thursday after holding marathon negotiations with the parties elected to the 120-seat parliament, known as the Knesset.
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Some 67 lawmakers backed Eisenkot, a former military leader, while 46 backed Netanyahu.
In a televised address at the end of the talks, Herzog said that while “the results of the consultations may seem clear,” there were “mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves” that make it difficult to say who has the best chance of putting together a governing coalition.
He said he would hold “personal talks with some party leaders” during the Israeli weekend, which runs from Friday to Saturday, and would make his choice on Sunday.
Israel’s October 27 election left neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot on the path to a parliamentary majority, handing Herzog the difficult task of choosing a candidate in a deeply divided country.
Netanyahu’s Likud won the most seats of any party, with 27 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, but his broader religious-nationalist coalition garnered only 53 in total.
Eisenkot’s alliance of four Jewish-led parties, which span the political spectrum from center-left to right, won 48 seats despite polls predicting a close race.
Two parties representing Israel’s Palestinian minority won an unprecedented 19 seats.
Eisenkot, like Netanyahu, has ruled out forming a government with Arab parties. Both parties nonetheless recommended it, giving it the support of a comfortable majority of lawmakers.
“We want to do things that we have not done in the past in order to overthrow this criminal government,” Ahmad Tibi, a senior official with the Joint List, which represents an alliance of Arab parties, told the Associated Press news agency.
Eisenkot’s party, Yashar, said his 67 recommendations were the most any candidate had received since 2015, and urged Herzog to give him the mandate “as soon as possible” so he could form an emergency national government.
Separately, Netanyahu suffered a setback on Thursday when United Torah Judaism, one of the two main ultra-Orthodox parties and a longtime ally, refused to recommend a candidate.
The party broke with Netanyahu following his coalition’s failure to pass a law exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military service, the Times of Israel reported.
Yariv Oppenheimer, a member of the Democrats, a party in Eisenkot’s alliance, told Al Jazeera he saw “no reason” why Herzog would not choose Eisenkot on Sunday.
He said United Torah Judaism had signaled that its support was available at the right price, meaning a good enough offer from Eisenkot could give it the numbers it needed.
“It is very clear that Netanyahu has no chance of establishing a government,” he added.
Once appointed by Herzog, the candidate will have 28 days to attempt to form a government, with a possible 14-day extension.
Netanyahu will remain prime minister in an interim government until a new coalition is formed, or until another election is held if no candidate succeeds.
Netanyahu, who faces losing power, used an investigation by election officials into possible vote tampering to cast doubt on the results, accusing Arab-led parties of stealing the vote.
Critics accuse Netanyahu and his partners of trying to undermine the results, which he denies.
Israel’s Central Elections Commission said Wednesday that the integrity of the election had not been compromised. The commission’s chairman, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, called on Israeli elected officials to protect public trust rather than undermine it.
“It’s a real danger. One of the foundations of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power,” Sohlberg told Herzog on Wednesday at his home. High turnout, including among the Arab minority, is a blessing, he said.
Netanyahu’s far-right allies, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have called for the immediate arrest and interrogation of Arab party leaders.
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