Knesset Speaker Vote Expected in 12 Days as Opposition Agrees

The heads of Israel's opposition parties have agreed on how they will pick their candidate for Knesset Speaker. They will name a designated Speaker shortly before the Knesset session that elects the new Speaker, which is expected in 12 days. At the same time, Gadi Eisenkot's negotiations with the ultra-Orthodox parties remain in very early stages.

Knesset Speaker Ohana is expected to move within about a week to convene the plenum for the vote, Amit Segal reported. Under the arrangement reached by the opposition leaders, their designated candidate will be made permanent in the role only as part of the formation of a new government.

The opposition parties remain divided over who should fill the post.

Eisenkot stated that he wants to present a government as soon as possible. The largest obstacle in his way is Avigdor Liberman's refusal to swear in a government that relies on the votes of Arab parties. Other members of Yashar and Beyachad share that position.

The contest over the Speaker's chair was already open before this week's meeting. Liberman, chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu, announced that he would recommend Eisenkot to form the next government, reversing his earlier refusal to commit. In the same period, he demanded that Yisrael Beiteinu MK Oded Forer be appointed Speaker on behalf of the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

Two days later, Michael Shemesh reported that Naftali Bennett intends to claim the Knesset speakership in coalition negotiations. Bennett wants the post to go to someone from his own party or to another agreed candidate, provided that person is not a member of Eisenkot's Yashar party.

The chareidi parties have kept their distance from both camps. On November 5, United Torah Judaism told President Isaac Herzog that it would not recommend any candidate to form the government. Agudat Yisrael chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf stated: "We are not committed to any political bloc." The alliance has tied its support to a single issue: the legal status of yeshiva students and kollel members.