New Israeli govt to be sworn in, ending Netanyahu's twelve-year premiership

Jerusalem: Israel's parliament is set to vote on Sunday on a new government led by Yamina head Naftali Bennett, ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power after an uninterrupted 12 years at the helm of affairs.

The prospective government - an unprecedented coalition of ideologically divergent political parties drawn from the Right, the Left and the Centre, along with an Arab party - has a razor-thin majority of one seat.

The Knesset (Israeli parliament) is scheduled to meet at 4 PM local time and sans last-minute grand surprises, Bennett, an old-time associate of Netanyahu and leader of the right-wing Yamina party, would take over the mantle from his one time mentor leading a fragile government with a razor-thin majority of 61 lawmakers in a 120 member house.

Ahead of the vote in Parliament, heads of the eight factions constituting the new coalition met to confirm the government.

Informed sources said that "they all re-affirmed their commitment and it was all set to go ahead .

The approval by the Knesset would bring to an end 12 years of uninterrupted rule by Netanyahu, 71, who holds the record of being the longest-serving Prime Minister in the country's history.

Having served in the position earlier between 1996 and 1999, Netanyahu last year surpassed the record held by one of the Jewish state's founding leaders, David Ben-Gurion.

The formation of the new government would end the political impasse in the country that saw four elections in less than two years leading to inconclusive results.

But opinion polls suggest that majority of the Israelis do not look too hopeful regarding the longevity of the coalition of eight disparate parties who do not see eye-to-eye on most of the critical issues facing the country.

Bennett, 49, has entered into a power-sharing agreement with Centrist leader Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid party, under which the latter would take over Premiership in September 2023, serving for two years till the end of the term.

Lapid, the leader of the second-largest faction in the Knesset with 17 seats was invited by President Reuven Rivlin to form a coalition after Netanyahu, leading the Likud party with 30 seats, expressed his inability to put together a government backed by a majority of the lawmakers.

The unstable coalition that Lapid has managed to put together faces severe challenges and the glue that seems to hold them together is the 'unity of purpose' created by the agenda of ousting

Netanyahu.