A preliminary vote on Wednesday is planned to dissolve the Knesset, which would trigger early elections if ultimately passed into law, after the coalition failed to pass legislation codifying military conscription exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, all bills were removed from the parliamentary plenum’s agenda for the second day in a row. The exact timeline for passing the dissolution bill remains unclear, though the legislation is expected to be swiftly pushed through the Knesset. After clearing its preliminary reading on Wednesday, the bill would need to go to a committee and then pass three more readings in the plenum.

Without any legislation, the Knesset’s agenda includes only speeches marking last week’s Jerusalem Day, Ethiopian Jewish immigration and National Students Day.

If lawmakers vote to dissolve the Knesset, elections must be held within five months of the bill’s passing, which would mean mid- to late-October at the latest. The Haredi parties reportedly favor an election date in early September. Elections must, in any case, be held by October 27.

Passing the preliminary reading alone may still complicate the coalition’s legislative agenda for the remainder of the Knesset term, particularly on election-related initiatives such as lowering the voting age or raising the electoral threshold, both measures the coalition has expressed interest in advancing.

According to the Ynet news site, the Democrats chairman Yair Golan sent a letter to other Zionist opposition party heads — Together’s Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Yashar’s Gadi Eisenkot, and Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman — suggesting they hold a joint press conference ahead of a vote to dissolve the Knesset.

“We must stand together, shoulder to shoulder in front of the public, look directly at the strong and determined democratic camp, and say in a clear and distinct voice that........

© The Times of Israel