Mickey Levy of Yesh Atid party elected as speaker of Israel's parliament
Mickey Levy was elected as the speaker of Knesset (Israeli Parliament) with the support of 67 lawmakers.
Mickey Levy of Yesh Atid party was on Sunday elected as the speaker of Israel's Parliament, as lawmakers began voting on a new government to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power after an uninterrupted 12 years at the helm of affairs.
Levy was elected as the speaker of Knesset (Israeli Parliament) with the support of 67 lawmakers.
Israel's parliament began voting on Sunday on a new government led by Yamina head Naftali Bennett, 49.
Bennett, 49, presented his new government's ministers in the Knesset on Sunday in a speech constantly interrupted by Netanyahu's supporters.
The prospective government - an unprecedented coalition of ideologically divergent political parties drawn from the Right, the Left and the Centre, along with an Arab party - has a razor-thin majority of 61 lawmakers in a 120-member house.
Bennett, a former ally turned rival of Netanyahu, is leading a fragile coalition of eight parties - Yamina, Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid, New Hope, Labor, Meretz, United Arab List, Kahol Lavan and Yisrael Beiteinu.
The approval of the new government by the Knesset would bring to an end 12 years of uninterrupted rule by 71-year-old Netanyahu, who holds the record of being the longest-serving Prime Minister in the country's history.
Having served in the position earlier between 1996 and 1999, Netanyahu last year surpassed the record held by one of the Jewish state's founding leaders, David Ben-Gurion.