First No-Confidence Motion Defeated In Knesset

Ministers in the new government have barely received the keys to their offices, yet they had to face down the first no-confidence motion in the 20^th Knesset on Monday.

A Yesh Atid-sponsored no-confidence motion failed by a 59-56 vote.

Yair Lapid’s party proposed the government should be dissolved because it will not keep its promise to implement within five years the proposals of a government-appointed anti-poverty committee.

The minister in charge of liaison with the Knesset, Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud), characterized the no-confidence motion as frivolous, and urged the opposition to not to degrade an otherwise valid and useful parliamentary instrument.

The previous Knesset imposed a limit on factions to one no-confidence motion a month. But in the current Knesset, opposition factions say they will alternate and each propose one every week.

However, the new rules require parties that submit no-confidence motions to at the same time propose an alternative government with coalition guidelines and candidates for key posts. This will pose a problem for the Zionist Camp, because its candidates for defense minister and finance minister are so far unsettled.

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the May 19th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.