At the third reading, after a session lasting eight hours, the Parliament voted unanimously for the early termination of the legislature. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is accused of scaremongering by the opposition, calls for a strong government to address the economic crisis and the Iranian nuclear threat. Experts forecast another victory for center-right.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - The Knesset has voted to dissolve itself and table early elections to be held on January 22 which will mark the beginning of the 19th legislature. The unanimous vote by the 120 members of the Israeli Parliament  arrived yesterday evening at the third session, after a debate which lasted over eight hours river. In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had addressed the deputies, anticipating the will to return to the polls. "In less than 100 days - said the Prime Minister - "the people of Israel will decide who will lead them in the face of the greatest security challenges which we have known since the founding of the state". And, the prime minister, accused of "catastrophism and scaremongering" by the opposition, added they will be called upon to solve "the toughest economic crisis the world has known in the past 80 years."

The current right-wing government led by the Likud Party and close to premier with 27 seats in parliament, has been in office since 2009, the last three years has faced a number of issues that have remained unresolved, including the peace process with the Palestinians and the conflict (formerly verbal) with Tehran over the "Iranian nuclear threat." In recent weeks, the ruling coalition, however, slipped on a matter of an economic nature, the annual budget. The government has not in fact been able to approve the budget - which included spending cuts and less money for welfare - due to the obstruction of the smaller religious parties, against cutting appropriations of public funds, and a halt  on government subsidies.

Israeli analysts and policy experts are waiting to see if the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will decide whether or not to stand in the forthcoming elections. In fact the former mayor of Jerusalem and leader of Kadima, is the main rival of Netanyahu to lead the country, but the crux in his possible participation has not yet been resolved even though - for the time being - its seems he would be unable to win the competition against the current prime minister, who is ahead in the polls.

AsiaNews sources, experts in Israeli policy, deem the re-election of Netanyahu "very likely", judging the decision to call early elections a move to "guarantee he stays in power", given his current rivals are "weak or insignificant" and as a result there being no "alternative". The center-left is in fact is suffering from a "leadership vacuum" that no one seems able to fill. Newspapers close to the right judge the choice "wise", because it avoids going to the vote [in October 2013] with a weak government, with no budget, paralyzed by internal conflicts and called at the same time to deal with the much publicised atomic threat posed by the  regime of the ayatollahs.

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