The legislative process to formally dissolve the Knesset kicked into high gear on Tuesday.
Coalition whip MK Boaz Toporovsky (Yesh Atid) and New Hope faction leader MK Sharren Haskel met with the Knesset Speaker’s Committee on Tuesday morning in order to ensure that the proposal to dissolve the Knesset will be inserted into Wednesday’s plenum schedule.
Dissolution bill
The Likud bill for the Knesset’s dissolution brought forward by MK Shlomo Karhi is scheduled to reach the plenum floor on Wednesday as well, but the coalition will add its own bill so as not to enable the Likud to take sole credit for the Knesset’s fall.
Private bills need to wait 45 days between their placement on the plenum’s agenda and the initial vote unless decided otherwise by the Knesset Committee. The committee convened on Tuesday afternoon shortly after the bill was put onto Wednesday’s agenda and unanimously approved the exemption of the 45-day wait.
Coalition hopes
The coalition hopes to pass the initial vote in Wednesday’s Knesset plenum. According to procedure, the bill will then return to the Knesset Committee, which is headed by Yamina renegade MK Nir Orbach. Since Orbach quit the coalition, he may attempt to stall the vote in order to give the opposition a chance to form an alternative government without going to elections.
Read more on the dissolution of the Knesset and the upcoming elections:
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- What are Naftali Bennett’s political options after he leaves PMO?
The coalition is also debating whether to attempt to “clean the table” and pass all of its current bills that are ready for second and third readings. This will both ensure that efforts to push the bills this far will not be wasted and give the coalition factions a number of achievements that they can then use for their upcoming campaigns.
However, the slew of votes will take up precious plenum floor time and allow the opposition to use it to attack the coalition.