Prime Minister of Israel to become acting prime minister in the weeks leading to the elections. He was voted by the cabinet to be interim prime minister just after the 2006 elections, when Sharon had reached 100 days of incapacitation. He thus became Israel's third interim prime minister, only days before forming his own new government as the official Prime Minister of Israel. In 2008, amid accusations of corruption and challenges from his own party, Olmert announced that he would resign. However his successor Tzipi Livni was unable to form a coalition government. In the election in the following year, while Kadima won the
Tzipi Livni multiple policy disagreements boiled over, and Netanyahu fired Livni along with Finance Minister Yair Lapid from their posts, accusing the two of plotting a "putsch" to overthrow the government. Livni and Lapid had often criticized government decisions, which Netanyahu claimed amounted to an "opposition within the coalition," and made it "impossible to govern." A particular source of frustration for Netanyahu was Livni's control of the powerful ministerial committee on legislation. In December 2014 (after Livni had been dismissed as a cabinet minister), Secretary of State John Kerry told European Union ambassadors that his stance against a unilateral Palestinian measure at