Settlement Affairs Minister Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud) on Sunday evening told a gathering of activists that if Binyamin Netanyahu does not succeed in achieving the 61 Knesset seats that will allow him to form a government, the bloc of parties supporting Netanyahu will march into the opposition together.
"If there is 61 [seats] for the anti-Bibi camp, if they exercise their majority, they will implement a rotation, they will serve like cooks 'week after week' [in a rotation as Prime Minister], just so they overthrow the Prime Minister," Hanegbi said.
In such a case, he continued, "The Prime Minister will remain the leader of the opposition and we will have 58-59 determined Knesset members, we will not make life easy for them, we saw that the Oslo Accords were approved with a majority of 61, so there is always a price the people of Israel will pay for such a thing. I hope the opposite happens - 61 seats for us."
If Netanyahu manages to achieve 61 seats, he will try to bring defectors from the other camp, said Hanegbi.
"I was the chairman of the coalition when we had 61 seats, before Liberman joined, in 2015. Every vote counted, from Oren Hazan through Ayoob Kara to Yaron Mazuz, and really in the end we had to expand the coalition and bring in Liberman, which led to a rift with Bogie Ya'alon, who to this day is offended that a military clerk replaced him [in the post of Defense Minister],” he recalled.
"If we start at 61, I believe that other people who are in other parties will join along the way and it will be difficult for them to stay in opposition with the extreme left. We may be able to buy them for our side further down the road," he added.