Senior officials from the Likud Party, which won the most seats in the election for the 24th Knesset, hit out at President Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin on Wednesday after he implied he would hand the mandate to form Israel's next government to the candidate who is most likely to succeed in the task rather than the candidate who receives the most recommendations from fellow lawmakers.
Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz and Public Security Minister Amir Ohana published a joint statement in which they opined that "the president does not determine the results of the election" and must not act as a political actor.
"Since the establishment of the state, all Israeli presidents have given the opportunity to form a government to the candidate who received the largest number of recommendations first - and this should be the case this time as well," the statement read.