Amir COHEN (POOL/AFP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the Jewish state's president and a former minister of conspiring to have him toppled, triggering charges of "paranoia" ahead of elections.
"I know that a former Likud minister has been holding discussions with the coalition and concocted a subversive plot, with me winning a large victory at the next elections and him making sure I am not prime minister," he told a gathering of his right-wing Likud party on Wednesday night celebrating his 69th birthday.
Under the scheme, President Reuven Rivlin would use his prerogative as head of state to name an alternative Likud candidate to head a post-election government.
According to an Israel Hayom report published on Wednesday, concern has grown among those close to the prime minister that if Rivlin were to issue the duty to a lawmaker from another party or another lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party, he could in theory lose the premiership.
“They know that Netanyahu can not be replaced in the elections, so they try every way they can to remove him," the paper quoted a Likud official informed on the matter as saying.
In response to the report, Netanyahu’s coalition whip David Amsalem [Likud] said on Wednesday that he would promote new legislation curbing the authority of the president to decide who to appoint to form a new government after elections.
“It's immoral, undemocratic and illogical," Amsalem said of the report, “but sadly, obvious things can also receive a twisted interpretation and be abused.”
AP Photo/Gali Tibbon, Pool
Although Netanyahu did not explicitly name him, Gideon Saar, a former minister and leading rival within Likud, on Thursday publicly denied any such manoeuvre, while Rivlin mocked it as "paranoia" on the premier's part.
"We read the report in depth but had a hard time finding any credible information, save for a detailed description of paranoia which does not lean on any tangible step, or even thought, that happened in reality. As is known, the handling of such phenomena should be left to professionals, who are not spokesmen," the president’s office said in a statement.
Sources close to Netanyahu also denied the report, saying it originated from a former Likud senior official, who also spoke to several coalition members, and not from the President’s office.
Israel's next legislative elections are scheduled for November 2019 but early polls could be held in case of a crisis within Netanyahu's ruling Likud-led coalition.
"If Netanyahu decided against moving up the elections it's not because President Rivlin or former Likud minister Saar is out to get him, but rather to avoid coinciding with an indictment that might lose him the elections," Haaretz newspaper commented.
Netanyahu, who maintains his innocence in several corruption cases, is not obliged to step down as prime minister even if he is formally charged.
On Tuesday, it was reported that police have wrapped up their investigations and that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is expected to make a decision on whether to indict the premier within the next six months.
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