Lapid: We’re not talking about portfolios yet

In an apparent response to media reports claiming PM offered him finance or foreign minister, Lapid says negotiations haven't started.

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Yair Lapid addressing supporters in post election speech 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Ammar Awad)
Yair Lapid addressing supporters in post election speech 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/Ammar Awad)
Finding himself in the midst of a flurry of media speculation and reports, journalist- turned-coalition kingmaker Yair Lapid clarified on Friday that negotiations over government portfolios had not yet begun.
In an apparent response to reports in several media outlets on Friday morning that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had offered the Yesh Atid chairman a choice between the positions of finance and foreign minister, Lapid released a statement on his Facebook page urging people to be patient.
“What is happening now is not coalition negotiations, it’s not even the beginning of it,” he said. “But go and explain to the political system that it has to wait a month.
“Immediately everyone claims that he knows someone, who swears that he heard from someone who knows, who has ties with a senior official, who met a source who... who what?” Lapid said, describing the chatter as a media “sword dance.”
Lapid reiterated to the public that he “has not come for a seat.”
“I already had a seat,” he said, stressing that his party has come “to bring true change.”
He said that all the issues that were Yesh Atid’s primary concerns last week, remain so today: equalizing the burden, improving conditions for the middle class, and changing the political system.