Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has given up on his efforts to form a new Israeli coalition government, after failing to secure a majority coalition in Parliament following an inconclusive election in September.
Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving PM who heads the right-wing Likud party, revealed on Tuesday morning (Australian time) he was returning the mandate back to Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin.
Mr Rivlin said he will give Mr Netanyahu’s centrist rival Benny Gantz the opportunity to putting together a new government.
“In the past weeks I made every effort to bring Benny Gantz to the negotiating table, every effort to establish a broad national government, every effort to avoid another election,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Mr Gantz also has no clear path to a majority, and should he come up short, it would almost certainly lead to another general election, the third since April.
Mr Gantz’s Blue and White party said in a statement it was “determined to form a liberal unity government.”
Read the article in The New Daily (AAP).