Veteran Israeli politician Isaac Herzog was on Wednesday, 2 June, elected the 11th president of the country, succeeding Reuven Rivlin, whose term ends next month after seven years in office.
Herzog won an anonymous vote that was held among the 120 members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, reported AP. He defeated former headmistress Miriam Peretz for the position.
The 60-year-old politician is a former head of the Labor Party and had run against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 2013 parliamentary elections, albeit unsuccessfully, according to AP.
The president is largely a ceremonial head of state but has the task of selecting a political party leader to form the governing coalition after elections, reports AFP. Israel has been experiencing a long drawn-out political crisis that has seen four parliamentary elections being held in the past two years.
The result of the presidential election comes as PM Netanyahu’s opponents run against a tight deadline of midnight on Wednesday to put together a new administration aimed at ending the Prime Minister’s tenure.
(With inputs from AP and AFP.)
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