Analysis: Why Liberman Keeps Ruling Out a Minority Government, Even at the Cost of Another Election | Israel Politics Post
Analysis: Why Liberman Keeps Ruling Out a Minority Government, Even at the Cost of Another Election
Liberman's refusal to sit with Arab or ultra-Orthodox parties breaks from his own record in the 2021 Bennett-Lapid government, a stance that looks less like fixed ideology than a bet on his own political future.
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By Israel Politics Post Staff·Published
Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman speaks at an Israel Democracy Institute conference in Tel Aviv · Source: Miriam Alster/Flash90, via The Times of Israel
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman has said he will not join or support any government that relies on a minority coalition arrangement after the October 27 election, a position that would rule out exactly the kind of outside parliamentary support the previous Bennett-Lapid government used to pass a budget and stay in power, The Times of Israel reported. Liberman has said he will only sit with "Zionist parties," explicitly excluding Arab-majority factions and ultra-Orthodox parties alike.
That stance is worth scrutinizing against Liberman's own record: he served as finance minister in the 2021 government that depended on Ra'am, the Arab party he now says he won't work with under any circumstances. Read against that history, his current red line looks less like a consistent ideological position and more like a function of who, specifically, he is trying to keep out of power, which in Liberman's case has long been Prime Minister Netanyahu above almost anything else.
Liberman has argued the opposition can reach a majority outright if voter turnout among centrist and left-leaning Israelis runs high, ultra-Orthodox turnout slips, and peripheral and northern voters swing away from the governing coalition. It's a scenario built on favorable assumptions rather than current polling, which continues to show neither bloc within reach of the 61 seats needed to govern alone.
The likelier explanation is a longer-term bet. By ruling out the compromises that might otherwise let the opposition cobble together a majority now, Liberman keeps his own hands clean of exactly the kind of coalition-building he could be attacked for later, positioning himself for a future contest inside the Israeli right once Netanyahu eventually leaves the stage, even if that means accepting another inconclusive election in the meantime.
