A key vote in Israel’s Knesset related to the government’s bitterly contested judicial overhaul is set to be delayed at the behest of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a move that could torpedo negotiations with the opposition and galvanise the anti-legislation protest movement.
Parliamentarians were due on Wednesday to elect two political representatives to the country’s nine-member judicial selection committee, the composition of which is one of the most important issues in the now six-month-old political crisis.
Historically, one political appointee has been chosen by the government and one by the opposition, but several hardliners in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition had demanded that both positions be filled by government representatives.
The vote is widely viewed as a referendum on the judicial overhaul package’s future. Maintaining the status quo would appease the opposition but anger Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners and some members of his Likud party, threatening the stability of his government. The imminent retirement of two supreme court judges has raised the stakes.
Netanyahu had delivered mixed messages before the scheduled vote, only for his coalition to announce at the last minute that it would vote against all candidates. If the secret ballot ends in a stalemate, a new vote must be held within 30 days.
Opposition members of the Knesset said this week that if their nominated representative was not elected to the committee on Wednesday, they would withdraw from compromise talks brokered by Israel’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog. The negotiations have yielded little so far.
Protests against the judicial changes are expected on the streets of Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening.
“Netanyahu has lost control of his government and is being held hostage by extremists,” the centrist opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said as the voting was held. “He is destroying Israel’s democracy, our economy, our security and the unity of our society.”
Netanyahu returned to office in late December for his sixth stint as prime minister at the head of the most rightwing government in Israeli history. It quickly announced wide-ranging legislation to curb the outsized power of the supreme court and its perceived leftwing bias. The measures could also help Netanyahu evade prosecution in his corruption trial, in which he denies all charges.
Critics at home and abroad say the overhaul would erase democratic norms and politicise the judiciary.
The proposals, introduced in January, sparked Israel’s biggest ever protest movement, buoyed up by unexpected pressure from Tel Aviv’s tech sector and military reservists.
The months of political turmoil have damaged the shekel, which dropped more than 2% against the dollar before the vote on Wednesday, before regaining slightly to 1.4% down.
