New law would bar someone who served as PM for 4 years from running for next Knesset, preventing Netanyahu from running again.
The Bennett-Lapid government plans to promote two dramatic laws in its early days – the cooling-off law and the law to dissolve the Likud.
According to the coalition agreement revealed by Channel 12 News, a law will be promoted that prevents those who served as prime minister for at least four years from running for the next Knesset.
This law would only apply to Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for the last 12 years. This means that if the law is passed, he will not be allowed to run in the Knesset in the upcoming elections.
Thus, Netanyahu would have an interest in ensuring that the government survives for the full four years, because if it falls ahead of schedule, then someone else in the Likud would be the party’s candidate for prime minister.
The second law makes it possible to split the Likud faction on much more favorable terms than those that exist today. According to the law, it will be possible to do so by only four MKs instead of ten. This will make it easier to recruit defectors from the Likud to shore up the narrow coalition even as the Likud attempts to induce defectors from Yamina and New Hope to bring the coalition down.
The Likud said in response: “Bennett is turning Israel into a dark dictatorship – North Korea meets Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu fights Iran, and Bennett brings a law from Iran. This law will remove Israel from the society of enlightened democracies and put it among the darkest tyrannical regimes … Bennett is crossing every red line in his insane chase for the prime minister’s seat at any price.”
“After Bennett deceived his voters and passed votes from right to left only to appoint himself prime minister with six seats, he is now bringing a law that does not exist in any democracy in the world, with the aim of disqualifying Prime Minister Netanyahu from running for Knesset and thus eliminating the right-wing leader. He is crossing a red line in his insane pursuit of the prime minister’s chair at all costs. ”
(Arutz 7).