Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked announced on Wednesday that she would not vote for Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s bill that would prevent an indicted MK from forming a government.
The bill would apply to those indicted for a crime punishable by a three-year sentence. That would include former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted for bribery.
“The attorney-general cannot decide who will be prime minister,” Shaked said at a conference of local authorities in Modi’in.
Joint List head Ayman Odeh responded that his faction could more than make up for Shaked’s opposition.
'Shaked has only one vote and we have six,” Odeh wrote Sa’ar on Twitter, urging him to bring it to a vote next week.
Yamina’s Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana responded to Odeh saying he had six “fingers” for voting by saying that he saw what his hands could do – referring to Odeh shoving MK Itamar Ben-Gvir at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot.
Ben-Gvir called the bill shocking and said it violates the premise of innocent until proven guilty.
The bill will not be voted upon until after the passage of the state budget.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the Ra’am (United Arab List) faction have not announced whether they will support the bill.
Labor leader Merav Michaeli, who in the past opposed personal legislation, said this bill had to pass in order to ensure that prime ministers would not be corrupt.
The Likud vowed on Wednesday to prevent the bill’s passage.
“Bennett and Sa’ar stole the last election, and now they are trying to steal the next one,” the Likud said. “They won’t get away with it.”