Yesh Atid-Telem chairman MK Yair Lapid spoke in the Knesset plenary today and put forward a proposal to freeze the political process for six months and avoid fourth elections during the coronavirus crisis.
Below is the full text of Yair Lapid’s speech:
In light of the events of the past 24 hours, the embarrassing past month, the past year. I want to put forward a proposal to this house: Enough of politics.
People don’t have enough food to put on the table. Businesses are collapsing. People are dying in hospitals. We need to solve the crisis of the lack of tests. We need to start to tackle the economic crisis because no-one has really started to tackle it. In these circumstances. The creation of a corrupt and bloated government is a national disaster. The idea that we’ll get dragged to fourth elections is disturbing. It’s completely detached from reality.
So I’m going back to a proposal I suggested before - a simple, clean proposal. To freeze everything for six months. This house will vote to amend clause 10 of the Basic Law of The Government and we will go to a freeze. The legality of it has been checked and the proposal was formally tabled earlier today. The country needs stability.
We have to avoid fourth elections.
We will go to six months of a political freeze. In six months we’ll come back to the same situation. In those six months, instead of dealing with politics we will work to save the economy and the healthcare system and people’s lives. In those six months, the transitional government will continue. I think it’s a bad government but it won’t be able to do whatever it wants because we’ll control the Knesset. The Knesset will have teeth and it will have a majority.
We will propose our anti-corruption laws. We will ensure the government doesn’t take advantage of the coronavirus for political gain. The government and Knesset will pass a budget together. We will get our essential systems functioning again. We will save the charities. We will create an efficient compensation system for small businesses. We will take care of the more than one million unemployed. That’s what’s important at the moment.
A freeze isn’t ideal. It’s not what we wanted. But it’s better than crawling into a corrupt government. It’s definitely better than fourth elections. The citizens of Israel are at risk. They need to know that their politicians aren’t focused on themselves, but on them. They mostly need to know that we’re working for them. Let’s freeze the politics and get to work.