Israeli president to officially start coalition talks Wednesday

Israeli President Shimon Peres is set to officially start consultations on the formation of the upcoming government on Wednesday, following the Jan. 22 elections. The president will receive the official and final results of the elections and start meeting with different politicians who will recommend the most able candidate to form a new government. That person will be incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Peres officially has a week to decide who to appoint to the task, but according his chambers' spokesperson unit, he plans to make the consultations "as short and brief" as possible. Estimates are that Peres will make his decision on Friday. After that, the candidate can officially start coalition talks with potential future coalition partners. Once Peres appoints the candidate he has 28 days to form a coalition. Peres is first set to meet up with representatives from the two biggest parties, the Likud Beitenu which won 31 seats out of 120 available in the Knesset (parliament) and Yesh Atid, the second largest party and the surprise of the elections with 19 seats. He will meet with heads of other parties in the order of the seats they received in the elections. Meanwhile, the Ha'aretz daily reported that Yesh Atid's leader Yair Lapid has coordinated a move with Naftali Bennet, head of Habayit Hayeudi (Jewish Home) party, to keep the ultra-Orthodox out of the next government. Although Lapid's party belongs to the center and Bennet is more to the right, both have struck a chord with middle-class Israelis, specifically on the topic of the an equal share of the military burden in the Israeli society. Last year, the controversial Tal Law which exempted ultra- Orthodox seminary students from serving in the army expired. The government wasn't able to draft an alternative, demanded by the Israeli people, and this topic will play a major role in the upcoming government. The topic is a taboo as far as the ultra- Orthodox parties are concerned. Yesh Atid, which is set to be the coalition's senior party as the second largest, will reportedly demand the chairmanship of the Knesset's Finance Committee, chaired in the past by ultra-Orthodox Members of Knesset. The committee controls the flow of government's funds, the state budget and taxes and its chairman is an important part of the Israeli politics.