Gabbay unfit to be prime minister, says scorned Livni

“"Everyone who saw what happened yesterday knows he is not a candidate for prime minister,” she said. “There is someone who wants to be that."

MK Tzipi Livni participates in a debate in Knesset June 25, 2018 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
MK Tzipi Livni participates in a debate in Knesset June 25, 2018
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The mudslinging between Hatnua head Tzipi Livni and Labor leader Avi Gabbay continued to escalate on Wednesday, when Livni said he was unfit to be prime minister.
Since Gabbay’s July 2017 election as Labor leader, Livni would only say that “according to the agreement between us, he is our candidate for prime minister.” When The Jerusalem Post asked her on Tuesday whether she ever truly thought he would be prime minister, Livni politely declined to respond.
But in an Army Radio interview on Wednesday morning, she revealed what she believed all along.
“Everyone who saw what happened yesterday knows he is not a candidate for prime minister,” she said. “He wants to be that. But he has no particular ideology.”
Livni responded with positive affirmation following the interview, when the Post pointed out that she had answered the newspaper’s question from the day before.
Labor responded that while Gabbay showed courage by quitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government, Livni will not dismiss the idea of joining a Netanyahu-led government in the future.
Sources in Hatnua said former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz’s party, Hosen L’Israel (Israel Resilience) sent messages to Livni that report he is not interested in having her run with his party because she is regarded as “too leftist” are untrue.