Kahlon endorses Netanyahu for PM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday secured the 61 seats out of 120 that he needed to form the next coalition government.

After almost a week of wrangling, Netanyahu managed to tip the balance after Kulanu party chairman Moshe Kahlon said that his party, which won 10 seats in the election, would back Netanyahu for the premiership.

"In order to quell the suspense, we will honour the people's wishes,” said Kahlon. “The people decided that Netanyahu should form the government, and I recommend Netanyahu.”

President Reuven Rivlin is now expected to ask Netanyahu to form the new government as early as Wednesday. The Likud leader will then have until 7 May to form a coalition.

Kulanu is seen as a centrist party but Kahlon used to belong to Netanyahu’s Likud party until taking a break from politics in 2013.

"As you know, we created this movement (Kulanu) to be socially oriented. Throughout the campaign they told us that we don't understand the right or the left, and we said that our society is in the centre,” Kahlon told Rivlin.

Rivlin, who began consultations with the various parties on Sunday, has long supported a grand coalition which would include both Netanyahu and Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, over a right-wing alliance cobbled together by Netanyahu.

However, the two main blocks – seen as centre-left and centre-right – have ruled out any such deal, with the Zionist Union now set to head the opposition.

“Had the prime minister wanted to turn to Herzog – which is out of the question in light of the deep ideological differences between Likud and the Labor Party – he would have done so himself,” Likud said in a statement issued on Sunday.

Over the weekend Rivlin still suggested that he would like to broaden Netanyahu’s alliance and was reportedly trying to persuade Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party to back Netanyahu.

“The foreign policy issues and pressures that Israel will face from its close friends in Europe and the United States in the next term necessitate a broad government that will have the public’s support,” Rivlin said, hinting at the possibility of the ultra-Orthodox party joining a government that includes Yesh Atid.

But on Monday Yesh Atid, which won 11 seats, said it would join the opposition.

"We will join the opposition and will serve our voters - and all the voting public - from there,” Yesh Atid MK Yael German said.

The Joint List, made up of communist parties and parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, said it would not nominate a prime minister.

The ultra-orthodox Agudat Yisrael, which is part of the United Torah Judaism list, meanwhile said it will back Netanyahu.