Former coalition chairman David Bitan (Likud) blasted the center-left Blue and White party's attempted maneuvers aimed at ensuring that its chairman, MK Benny Gantz, would be the one to form a coalition.
Speaking to Channel 12 on Monday morning, Bitan said that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is "saddened and worried by that's happening with Blue and White and Gantz, who are joining together with the Joint Arab List with no qualms. This is something that cannot be ignored. Gantz does not want to meet Netanyahu, but he does meet with Balad (one of the factions in the Joint Arab List - ed.). What have we come to?"
"He's disappointed, he expected to receive much greater support given what he's done in the past years. He didn't receive that support for a variety of reasons, among them, unfortunately, is the media's influence on some of the voters. The Ethiopian community, which represents close to two Knesset seats, left us for reasons which are not related to us at all. There was also the vote-sharing agreement, under which we gave a seat to Yamina and Blue and White took a seat from Yisrael Beytenu, and that's the difference, basically."
Regarding the claims that the Blue and White party is working to ensure that Gantz will be tapped to form a government only after Netanyahu fails to form one, Bitan said: "To us it doesn't matter, we're relying on the President's decision on the matter."
"What Blue and White is doing is hurting President [Reuven Rivlin], they're playing little children's games. They saw that the Knesset's legal adviser suggested a different opinion, and suddenly they decided that they're not interested. They made sure that Balad would say that they don't support [Gantz] so that there would be 54 recommendations instead of 57. It's as if we would go to the UTJ party now and tell them not to recommend anyone to Rivlin.
"What's with these games? Blue and White needs to tell the President the truth, they're breaking every rule."
Regarding whether Netanyahu will succeed in forming a government, Bitan said: "I'm not sure. I think that it's impossible to form a government without the Likud. Any government which is formed without the Likud will not last more than a year and a half, and Gantz and Blue and White know that. Enough with these games, it's time Gantz sat with Netanyahu instead of with the Joint Arab List. They need to sit together and talk. If they don't talk nothing will come out of this. There is a way to solve the rotation problem, for instance - one year, two years, one year."