Bibi likely as next Israel PM

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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"The chances of Livni forming a government amount to zero," said Avraham Diskin, a political scientist with Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Livni's Kadima narrowly came out as the top party in Tuesday's election with 28 seats, but the foreign minister does not have the support needed for a governing coalition of at least 61 members in the 120-member parliament.

Netanyahu, a former prime minister whose Likud party won 27 seats, could count on a total of 65 seats with the backing of right-wing factions that dominated the vote. As Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press yesterday, Israeli election officials were counting military and overseas votes before announcing the final results of the inconclusive parliamentary election. The final tally could tip the scales toward Likud as troops usually tend to lean right.

President Shimon Peres will consult all 12 parties in the new parliament next week and, based on their preferences, will choose Netanyahu or Livni to try to form a government, according to the Associated Press. Despite his higher chances of becoming the next prime minister, Netanyahu is walking a political tightrope, analysts told Agence France-Presse. He is widely believed to want a unity government, including Kadima, to give him a solid majority and avoid the risk of a short-term government, which analysts warn would be the case with a strictly right-wing coalition.

"Bibi, whose narrow victory was anything but invigorating, was already burned once when he formed a narrow government back in 1996 and was kicked out of office bruised and humiliated (three years later)," wrote the Maariv newspaper. "Burned once, twice shy, and today he yearns for a national unity government," the paper said. But Livni has insisted that as the winner of the election, she should lead a unity government.

So Netanyahu is planning to approach Kadima through a circuitous route.

"He believes that if he can convince parties representing 61 members of parliament to recommend him to the president, Kadima will also join him: its members are not cut out to sit in the opposition," said the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot. Another solution would be a rotation in a unity government, a scenario Israel had in 1984 when the two main parties shared the prime minister's post. Netanyahu has ruled out such an option.