Presidents and government formation in Israel, 1949-2021

Although the Presidency of Israel is mostly a ceremonial office with no executive authority, the head of state plays a central and independent role in one very important area of the Israeli political system: the process of government formation. With the exception of a brief period (1996-2001) when the Prime Minister was directly elected, Presidents have always been in charge of conducting consultative meetings with the Knesset party groups and, based on their interpretation of parties’ recommendations, appointing a Member of the Knesset to form the new government. This paper explores the strategies that the Presidents of Israel have adopted to structure processes of government formation including the organization of formal and informal meetings with party groups and party leaders, interpreting the latter’s recommendations about who should be entrusted to form the next government, and deciding when to grant the formateur an extension and for how long. The working hypothesis of the paper is that presidential behavior is fundamentally determined by two variables: the prevailing balance of powers in the Israeli party system and the President’s personal political capital.