With 99 percent of the votes counted, indicating 30 mandates for the Likud after national elections Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to relatively smoothly form the next coalition government set to take office in the coming weeks, though there were bound to be frictions in the battle for key posts.
The coalition is likely to be made up of the ruling party, Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party with 10 seats, Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home with 8, Aryeh Deri’s Shas with 7, and Yaakov Litzman’s United Torah Judaism and Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman with 6 apiece.
Based on the near-final count, a coalition between these parties would be 67 seats strong. The Likud party said in a statement Wednesday that Netanyahu had phoned the leaders of these parties to launch talks.
Speculations abound but reports indicate that incumbent Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon from the Likud party will remain in that role, with a Likud source shutting down any chance that Liberman would be handed the coveted post. The outgoing foreign minister made it clear that he wanted the portfolio in Netanyahu’s cabinet.
“It is about time that he understood that there can be a coalition without him,” the source said, according to the Hebrew-language NRG website. “He will not be defense minister. There is a coalition and a right-wing majority even without him. Ya’alon will remain defense minister and we suggest that Liberman internalize his new position.”
Kahlon will likely be appointed as Israel’s next finance minister, after Netanyahu promised him the post, and two more senior members of his party were also likely to be appointed ministers. A possible scenario could include Yoav Galant being given the Public Security Ministry and Eli Alalouf the Welfare and Social Services Ministry.
Kahlon, who was largely seen as the kingmaker in the hotly contested election, said that he would be waiting for the final results to come in on Thursday before beginning negotiations.
Bennett was also likely to be given a senior post, and possibly the Foreign Ministry, according to NRG. The Justice Ministry was also said to be an option. Two other ministries could be given to senior members of his Jewish Home party.
The Interior Ministry might be given to Shas’s Deri, who has held it in the past, with the UTJ party being offered the Health Ministry and the leadership of the Knesset Finance Committee.
Within the Likud, MK Yuli Edelstein was expected to keep his Knesset speaker role and other members who soared in the party primaries in December were likely to receive senior posts as well.
MKs Gilad Erdan and Yisrael Katz were reportedly both eyeing the Foreign Ministry, while MK Miri Regev, who came in fifth in the primaries and is the highest-ranking woman in the party, has indicated an interest in the Construction and Housing Ministry.
Senior posts were also expected to be handed down to MKs Ofir Akunis, Tzipi Hotovely and Gila Gamliel.
Netanyahu’s main rival, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, ruled out the option entering a Likud government when he declared Wednesday that his party would serve in the opposition.
“We have proven that we know how to be a vigorous opposition and what is emerging at the moment as the only real possibility is that of heading to the opposition,” said Herzog before a meeting of the Zionist Union in Tel Aviv.
Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, which garnered 11 seats, was also set to serve in the opposition.
President Reuven Rivlin, charged with choosing the political leader to give the first shot at forming a government, notified each of the parties on Wednesday that he intended to begin consultations with the various Knesset factions at the beginning of next week.
Netanyahu’s Likud party is the natural first choice to form a coalition.
An official letter, sent out by the President’s Residence a day after Israel’s national elections, informed the parties that Rivlin was to start meeting with their representatives on Sunday.
“It is the president’s intention to open the round of consultations already at the beginning of next week, out of an effort to conclude the process of establishing the new government as early as possible – in order to ensure the citizens of Israel have the assurance of a fully functioning government, in the face of the present challenges which lie before the State of Israel,” the letter read.

By Stuart Winer and Marissa Newman