By: Ethan Tehranzadeh
After one of the most intense elections in Israel’s history, on Tuesday April 9, Israelis decided that they are not ready to move on from Netanyahu and his ideologies just yet. One of the biggest storylines during the campaign was the anticipated amount of seats Likud and Blue and White would get. Benjamin Netanyahu, the incumbent Prime Minister and leader of the right-wing Likud party, received 35 seats. Benny Ganz and Yair Lapid, fierce rivals of Netanyahu and the leaders of the newly founded Blue and White party, also received 35 seats.
How come Netanyahu is Prime Minister?
In Israel’s political system, it is all about coalitions. In Israel’s democracy, you need at least 61 seats to ensure a majority. However, since Israel is a place of many views and thoughts, and there are so many parties, it is very unlikely for this to happen. Therefore, the party with the most seats tries to form coalitions with other parties so it could have the majority and get things done in the country.
The President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, appoints the party leader who he thinks is will form a majority. Once the dust has settled and the results come in, Rivlin accepts recommendations from the parties indicating who they will most likely side with in a coalition. Rivlin appointed Netanyahu after almost all right-wing parties that had various amounts of seats recommended him to the President. Despite the result, Ganz and Lapid will surely be on top of their duty of opposition, keeping Netanyahu in check and making sure everything is in the best interest of Israel. Moving forward, no one can help but look forward to what is going to be a promising four years for this young nation.
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