Israel Matzav

Netanyahu says he'll run again

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said for the first time on Saturday night that Tuesday's election would not be his last and that he intends to run for a fourth term as prime minister.

Netanyahu, whose two terms in office have totaled seven years, recently passed Yitzhak Shamir as the prime minister who served second-longest after David Ben-Gurion. In an interview with Channel 10, he was asked whether he intended to try to serve another six years to outlast Israel's first prime minister.

“I intend to be here for many more years,” Netanyahu said in the interview in the prime minister's official Jerusalem residence.

Until Netanyahu's statement, Likud politicians assumed that this would be Netanyahu's last term as prime minister, and he would then make way for up-and-coming future prime ministerial candidates in his Likud party, like ministers Moshe Ya'alon and Gideon Sa'ar and perhaps even former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman if he emerged unscathed from his legal problems.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Knesset elections 2013

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:45 AM