Seeking to bring Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on board to lead a left-wing bloc of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich is thinking of recommending that President Shimon Peres give the mandate to form the coalition to Lapid.

Yacimovich on Wednesday 12 Shevat 5773 met in her home with senior party officials, and she believes that the left-wing can block the prime minister if all the parties, including the Arabs, unite. Her meetings preceded the change in the political realities, as the final vote count gave the right-wing an additional seat at the expense of the left-wing, with the later now holding 59 Knesset seats while the right-wing will have a one seat majority.

Back to Yacimovich – she will recommend Lapid for the presidential mandate on condition that Lapid agrees in advance to lead a centrist/left-wing coalition and not team up with Likud/Beitenu, Yated Ne’eman reports. Lapid however already announced that such a reality is a non-starter for him.

Yacimovich announced that the party earned 15 seats, which is far more than anyone could have dreamed about six months ago, but she nevertheless remains disappointed as she wished to see the new government base itself on Labor’s social economic platform and not another round of Likud economics.

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(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)