Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has not yet decided what portfolio to accept in the
government Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to form next
month.
But he already knows what job he wants in the government after
that: prime minister.
In an interview with Channel 2’s Uvda (Fact)
program broadcast Monday night, Lapid made a prediction.
Asked if he will
win the next election, he said, “I believe so.”
Sources close to
Netanyahu have said that following Yesh Atid’s success in garnering 19 mandates
in last Tuesday’s election, Lapid could choose any portfolio he wants in
Netanyahu’s cabinet.
Lapid is expected to choose the foreign or finance
portfolio, but a source close to him said that heading the Interior or
Construction and Housing ministries are also possibilities. Lapid himself has
refused to discuss portfolios.
United Torah Judaism held its first
faction meeting since the election on Monday and called upon Netanyahu to form a
coalition with them rather than Lapid.
They said the 18 MKs of UTJ and
Shas would be more loyal than the 19 of Yesh Atid.
UTJ said the party’s
red line that would prevent them from joining the coalition would be limiting
the number of yeshiva students who want to learn Torah.
“What is
equalizing the burden?” UTJ head Ya’acov Litzman asked rhetorically.
“Are
they going to throw us in jail?” Incoming UTJ MK Meir Porush warned that there
are hundreds of thousands of haredim who are ready to “sanctify God’s name” by
battling against the government’s edicts.
Shas co-chairman Arye Deri told
Channel 10 Monday that he was preparing to take his party into the
opposition.
Four secularist organizations sent a letter to Netanyahu on
Monday urging him to form a coalition that would pursue a civil agenda and would
not include haredim.