(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israelis should elect the next government leader directly if lawmakers fail to end the country's political impasse.
Israel's parliament has until midnight Wednesday to establish a governing coalition and stave off a third election in less than a year. Caretaker governments have been in charge since December, after two inconclusive elections ended with both Netanyahu and chief rival Benny Gantz failing to garner enough support for a parliamentary majority.
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Polls suggest that another election would produce similar results. Israel last held a direct vote for prime minister in 2001, scrapping the system after it proved ineffective in stabilizing governments.
While Netanyahu's Likud and Gantz's Blue and White bloc have enough seats to form a majority government, Netanyahu's legal troubles have complicated any power sharing between the two.
Netanyahu has insisted on serving first as prime minister, for what Blue and White alleges may be an attempt to change Israeli law and obtain immunity from his three corruption cases. Gantz has argued that Netanyahu must step aside once summoned to court.
“Blue and White always says that it presumes to know what the country wants,” Netanyahu said in video on Twitter. “So I say something simple: Let the nation decide.”
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Polls show that Netanyahu is the most popular candidate for prime minister, though Gantz has been closing the gap. A popular mandate to lead the country would give Netanyahu an edge in coalition talks. Even then, he wouldn't have enough parliamentary seats to build a government and avoid yet another vote.
“We're engaged in efforts to avoid costly and unnecessary elections, and not with empty spin,” a spokeswoman for Blue and White said in a statement. “Changing the election system in a blitz is only going to bring us back to exactly the same place we are in today.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Yaacov Benmeleh in Tel Aviv at ybenmeleh@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Alistair Barr
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