Coalition votes down term limits for prime minister

Lapid: "Netanyahu is proof of why term limits are needed. Had there been term limits, Netanyahu would have left three years ago, and we would have been spared three indictments and three elections."

By GIL HOFFMAN
THE KNESSET – lawmakers have different ways of expressing their frustration over the coalition crisis (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
THE KNESSET – lawmakers have different ways of expressing their frustration over the coalition crisis
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition rejected three bills that would have instituted term limits for prime ministers on Wednesday, in votes in the Knesset plenum.
The bills, which were sponsored by MKs Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu), Merav Michaeli (Labor) and Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid-Telem) fell by votes of 43 to 30, 44 to 32 and 46 to 32, respectively. Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz did not attend the debate and did not vote.
The legislation, which would have taken effect starting with the next Knesset, would have set the term for prime minister at eight years or two terms, whichever would be longer.
“Netanyahu is proof of why term limits are needed,” Lapid said. “Had there been term limits, Netanyahu would have left three years ago, and we would have been spared three indictments and three elections.”
Michaeli quoted Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who said “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“There is a reason we do not have a Caesar,” Michaeli told the plenum. “In 11 years, Netanyahu has not opened his wallet, has not walked among the people, has not driven a car. How can someone who has lived like that for 11 years make decisions for the people? He has no clue how they feel.”
Forer said Likud MKs were cowards, because they did not vote for the bills, even though they supported them. He said Blue and White MKs were ridiculous because not only do they support his bill, they even signed on to it.
Minister in the Defense Ministry Michael Biton (Blue and White) responded on behalf of the government that while he and his party are still in favor of term limits they would vote against the bills, because the government would decide on the matter in an organized manner in three months.
Biton said Gantz would “serve as prime minister for eight or 10 years and limit his term.” Lapid heckled him, saying “You sponsored the bill. There is no limit to hypocrisy.”
Meanwhile, new Shas MK Yosef Taieb was sworn in to the Knesset on Wednesday, in place of Deputy Interior Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur, who quit Monday in accordance with the Norwegian Law.
Taieb is a French immigrant, a rabbi and served in an elite IDF unit in the Golani Brigade. He was a member of the local council in Telz-Stone.


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