JERUSALEM, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Yariv Levin, a close associate of Israel's Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, was elected on Tuesday as the parliament's interim speaker.
The Israeli parliament or Knesset voted in favor of Levin, a lawmaker with Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, to replace Mickey Levy, a lawmaker with departing Prime Minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid centrist party.
Levin was elected as temporary speaker after Netanyahu, who is struggling to meet the demands of his future coalition partners in the talks on government formation, has not decided yet who he would appoint to the senior post.
Levin will serve as the speaker of the parliament at least until the inauguration of the new government, a spokesperson with the Likud told Xinhua.
In Israel, the Knesset Speaker controls the schedule of the votes on new legislation.
The move was widely seen in Israel as a crucial first step ahead of the incoming government's planned blitz of votes to amend several laws. The main amendment aims to enable Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox party of Shas and a Netanyahu's ally who was convicted of tax fraud, to hold two ministerial positions. ■
