Netanyahu out as New Israeli as new coalition government comes in

Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his 12-year-old hold on power as prime minister of Israel after the country’s parliament voted  60-59, to a new coalition government led by right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennett of the Yamina party who will leading an unprecedented coalition of parties.

The incoming prime minister will be in office until September 2023 as part of power sharing deal, then hand power over to Yair Lapid, a rising newspaper columnist in the late 1990s and TV anchor, leader of centrist Yesh Atid for further two years.

Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving leader who has dominated its political landscape for years will remain head of the right-wing Likud Party and become leader of the opposition.

He said “ Ir is our destiny to be in the opposition , we’ll do so with our head held high until we take down this bad government, and return to lead the country our way”.

Mr Bennet  thanked Mr Netanyahu for his service to the country and pledged never to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu called  an election in April 2019, but failed to win enough support to form a new coalition government. Subsequently two more elections followed which ended inconclusively,

The third election resulted in a government of national unity where Mr Netanyahu agreed to share power with the then opposition leader Benny Gantz, but the arrangement collapsed in December triggering a fourth election, which Likud emerging as the largest part in he 120-seat Knesset, Mr Netanyahu was unable to form a coalition government and the task was handed to Mr Lapid whose centrist Yesh Atid party had emerged as the second largest. Lapid’s coalition contains alliance parties which have vast ideological differences and includes eight female ministers, and  the first independent Arab Party to be part of potential ruling coalition, Raam.