On September 25th, President Rivlin chose Prime Minister Netanyahu as the first candidate to form Israel’s next government. Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised President Rivlin that he will not try to activate Section 12 of “Basic: Law The Government” which triggered the September Knesset Election.

The first candidate receives 28 days to form a government. The first candidate may ask for an extension and the President may grant him up to 14 days. Additionally, the President can choose to break up the 14 days into separate extensions and force the candidate to keep returning for additional extensions. In any event the first candidate cannot hold on to the mandate for more than 42 days.

The first candidate can choose at any point to hand back the mandate to the President early.

If the first candidate fails or chooses to return the mandate early that leaves the President with three options that he has up to three days to consider:

A) He can grant the mandate to the alternative candidate from the first round of consultations.

B) He can conduct another round of consultations in the hopes that an additional candidate will emerge in addition to the alternative candidate from the first consultations. The first candidate cannot be chosen as the second candidate.

In the event the the second candidate that is appointed in A or B fails to form a government the mandate is then transferred from the President to the Knesset.

C) He can choose to inform the Knesset Speaker that there is no second candidate and the mandate is then transferred from the President to the Knesset .

The Knesset then has two options:

A) For the next 21 days the Knesset may put forth a third candidate to the President by submitting 61 MKs signatures. Any MK can participate.

The President will have two days to process the request.

B) If the Knesset fails to put forth their own candidate that will automatically trigger a snap-election.

The third candidate has 14 days to inform the Speaker & President he has formed a government. The Speaker can delay the vote for an additional seven days if necessary.

In the event the third candidate fails to form a government a snap-election will automatically be triggered.

If all three candidates (or two if the President forfeits his ability to choose a second candidate himself) fail to form a government so a snap-election would take place 84-90 days later on a Tuesday.

Section 43 of “Basic Law: The Government” allows the Knesset in certain circumstances, within five days of the Knesset candidate failing to form a government, to push off the election up to 100 days if necessary.