Knesset Will Vote Tuesday on Replacing Speaker Amir Ohana After a Majority Forced the Question

Israel’s Knesset will vote on Tuesday 17 November 2026 on electing a new Speaker in place of Amir Ohana of Likud. Mr Ohana set the date on the evening of 10 November, the day the 26th Knesset was sworn in, after a majority of its 120 members demanded the vote, The Times of Israel reported.

The bloc behind Gadi Eisenkot, who holds the mandate to form a government, has nominated Matan Kahana, a former minister who is fifth on the Yashar list, according to a joint statement by its leaders reported by The Times of Israel. Mr Ohana had resisted an early vote. “The customary time for electing a Knesset speaker is when the government is formed,” he said, Ynet reported, adding: “If a majority of them request such a discussion, I will schedule it for an earlier date, no later than one week,” and “There will be no clinging to power at all costs.”

The new Knesset has 46 first-time members and a record 33 women, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. Its first contested vote will be about who runs it.

What the Knesset’s rules say

They set a latest date, not a usual one. Section 2(b) of the Knesset’s Rules of Procedure says the Speaker “shall be elected no later than the date on which the Knesset convened for the purpose of establishing the Government,” and that if the two fall on the same day, the Speaker is elected first. Nothing in the chapter prevents an earlier election. Section 2(a) requires the vote to be open, under article 20 of Basic Law: The Knesset, and section 6(a) explains why the chair is worth a fight: the Speaker runs the Knesset’s affairs, presides over its sittings, and is the one who will “determine the results of votes.”

Until then Mr Ohana, Speaker of the outgoing Knesset, keeps the chair under what Israel’s Supreme Court has called the continuity rule. Replacing him early could let the parties opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu control the Knesset’s agenda before coalition talks end, Ynet reported. Mr Eisenkot’s bloc filed bills on the first day to set up a state commission of inquiry into 7 October, limit prime ministers’ terms and repeal parts of the judicial overhaul, The Times of Israel reported. A Speaker decides when such bills reach the floor.

Whose signatures made the majority?

Not only the four parties that campaigned to replace Mr Netanyahu. A majority of 120 is 61, the threshold Mr Ohana himself set, according to JNS. Yashar, B’Yachad, Yisrael Beytenu and the Democrats sent formal letters, Ynet reported, and they hold 48 seats between them. By this publication’s arithmetic, at least 13 of the members who made up the majority came from other factions. The table sets the final seat count, as this publication tabulated it on 9 November, beside what each faction was reported to have done about the Speaker.

The four parties plus the Joint List make 59, two short. With Ra’am the figure is 67, the same number that recommended Mr Eisenkot to President Isaac Herzog. This publication could not establish which members’ signatures were counted, and it is the open vote on Tuesday, not the letters, that will show where United Torah Judaism stands.

Has a Speaker refused before?

Yes, in March 2020, and the Supreme Court intervened. When a majority of the 23rd Knesset asked the acting Speaker, Yuli Edelstein, to put the election of a permanent Speaker on the agenda, he refused while coalition talks continued. The court, in Movement for Quality Government v. Speaker of the Knesset (HCJ 2144/20), ordered the vote held no later than 25 March 2020. President Esther Hayut wrote of the coalition consideration: “Such a political consideration has no place in the margin of discretion granted to him.” Mr Edelstein resigned instead, and the court directed the longest-serving member, Amir Peretz, to convene the plenum the next day and preside.

In 2020 the dispute took a court order and a resignation; in 2026 the incumbent conceded the date himself, within the one week he had promised. Mr Eisenkot’s first mandate period, 28 days under the rules this publication set out in October, runs to 6 December. The Speaker elected on Tuesday will be in the chair for the confidence vote, if it comes.