Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday tasked Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief and the leader of the center-right Yashar party, with forming the country's next government. It's the first of several steps necessary to determine the next Prime Minister—but a potentially months-long process could leave Benjamin Netanyahu in power for the foreseeable future.
With Herzog's nod, Eisenkot was given 28 days, through Dec. 6, with a possible 14-day extension, to assemble a government that can win the confidence of the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Once he notifies the President and the Knesset that he has formed a government, the lawmakers must meet within seven days for a confidence vote. The government takes office if it wins that vote.
First, Eisenkot would need to bring together rival political parties with disparate policy views and governing priorities in order to form a voting majority. By joining his coalition, parties are effectively endorsing Eisenkot as the next Prime Minister. But he has several obstacles to overcome before he can get the number of seats that he needs.
In last month's election, no party bloc secured the 61 seats needed to form a majority in the 120-seat parliament. This means that little has been decided about future leadership. But the process is still in motion.
Voters must be physically present on Election Day, with extremely rare absentee exceptions, and it is a public holiday. According to The Atlantic, an estimated 67,000 Israeli citizens living outside of the country traveled back this year in order to cast their ballots.
Despite Netanyahu's poor approval rating, his Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies, such as Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), secured the most votes and won 53 seats. The four Jewish-led parties of the Knesset backing Eisenkot—his Yashar party, in addition to the B'Yachad, the Democrats, and Yisrael Beytenu parties—earned 48. Two Arab-led parties hold the remaining 19—a record high.
"If you just count the number of votes for each party, Netanyahu's party got the most votes, but because it's a parliamentary system, and you need a simple majority to form a government, he was far away from actually establishing a government," Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells TIME.
To form a government, the parties must now negotiate an alliance that can secure enough support to win a confidence vote in the Knesset. Typically, this requires meeting or exceeding 61 seats, but it can also be fewer if some parties abstain.
Either Netanyahu's bloc or Eisenkot's bloc could reach a majority by joining forces with both Arab-led parties, giving them 72 or 67 seats, respectively. Alternatively, the two rival blocs would hold 101 seats if they joined together—but any such agreement would require negotiations over who would serve as Prime Minister.
Netanyahu would likely press to stay on. Rival leaders can also agree to take turns as Prime Minister, as Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir did between 1984 and 1988. Netanyahu has shown willingness in the past, extending such an offer to Benny Gantz in 2020, though it did not go through. The decision would need to be reached before a proposition for the new government could be submitted to the Knesset.
Parties within an electoral bloc can also negotiate separately. For example, either Eisenkot or Netanyahu could court one of the Arab-led parties without needing to necessarily sway the other. However, parties within a bloc tend to share similar outlooks on policy and representation.
Shira Efron, a senior fellow at Rand, a global policy think tank, says that voters should take note of Tuesday's announcement that the opposition bloc agreed to appoint Matan Kahana, who belongs to Eisenkot's Yashar party, as the next Knesset Speaker and Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beytenu, as Head of Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, reflecting a distinct vision for parliament and a willingness to begin the work.
"They have already been able to enact a few things already, fulfilling promises in terms of taking over the Knesset agenda," Efron says. "This is weakening Netanyahu already, before a government is even formed, and while he is still Prime Minister. So this is a positive thing for anyone who wants to see a change in government."
While the presidency is largely ceremonial in Israel, their power is particularly pronounced in the aftermath of an Israeli election. They consult with the leaders of each political party and pick the person who they believe is most likely to successfully bring together disparate parties to form a governing coalition.
"More often than not, it's been the leader of the party with the most votes," says Cook. "In this case, that's Netanyahu."
Another factor, however, was taken into account: 67 out of 120 Knesset members endorsed Eisenkot to Herzog during consultations last week, while only 46 endorsed Netanyahu.
"President Herzog came to the conclusion that although Netanyahu has the most votes of any party, Gadi Eisenkot had a better chance to form the necessary coalition," Cook says.
Cook says it boils down to a simple point: "More Israelis voted for parties that oppose Netanyahu than voted for parties that support Netanyahu." A majority of voters backed parties seeking to replace Netanyahu, even if those parties disagree on what should come next.
According to the Times of Israel, Yair Golan, Chairman of the Democrats, is the only leader of the four Jewish-led parties backing Eisenkot to publicly support a coalition with the Joint List and Ra'am. Naftali Bennett, leader of the B'Yachad party, and Lieberman are both nationalist leaders who oppose the idea of becoming reliant on Arab partners.
Cook points out that they can still pledge support from "the outside," which means voting alongside Eisenkot, and giving him the majority in parliament, without joining his coalition.
"There's examples of that happening in the past, and it has not been very stable, but that's one possibility," Cook says.
The Joint List has said it would support an alternative government from outside the coalition, but Lieberman has rejected outright a government reliant on outside support from Arab-led parties.
But that would likely be even more difficult, given that the ultra-Orthodox parties oppose compulsory military service for yeshiva students. On Oct. 31, Eisenkot shared a post on social media that outlined his four core demands for any political faction looking to join his upcoming "national emergency government," including a mandate of national service for all Israelis.
He is also free to make outreach efforts in the attempt to form his own coalition, which might involve swaying those who did not endorse him in their initial conversations with Herzog.
If Eisenkot is unable to form a coalition in the allotted time, with all potential extensions tapped, Herzog can choose another member of the Knesset to try—such as Netanyahu—or tell the parliament that he does not see a path forward.
If someone else is named, they would be given 28 days to make an attempt, without the possibility of an extension.
If a second candidate fails, or Herzog informs the Knesset that he sees no possibility of forming a government, lawmakers have 21 days to request, by majority, that a willing Knesset member be given the task. That candidate would then have 14 days to form a government.
If given the chance to form his own government, Netanyahu would face an uphill battle: Eisenkot and his allies have vowed not to sit in government with him and have accused him of ignoring warnings ahead of Hamas's attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
In an effort to lead, Netanyahu would likely reach out to more right-leaning members of the four parties that have pledged support to Eisenkot. Bennett and Lieberman have worked with him in the past. If Netanyahu is able to convince them that supporting him is less objectionable than collaborating with the Arab-led parties, then their seats would give him the majority needed to govern.
