Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that his party will win the next elections, hours before a midnight deadline for dissolving the parliament, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
Speaking in a televised press conference, Netanyahu accused Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist Blue and White party and Netanyahu's main coalition partner and political rival, of "forcing" a new round of elections.
He said his right-wing Likud will win "a landslide victory" in the upcoming elections. "We are against elections. It is a wrongful decision of Blue and White. But if we are forced to have elections, we will win," the long-time prime minister said.
Netanyahu accused Gantz, Israel's alternate prime minister and defense minister, of backtracking on an agreement to change a law under which the parliament will be automatically dissolved if the state budget for 2020 is not passed by midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Gantz accused Netanyahu of "acting criminally by failing to bring the state budget for the approval of the government over more than six months."
He said Netanyahu has violated their power-sharing coalition agreement in order to foil an expected rotation, under which Gantz would have replaced Netanyahu as prime minister. He said that Netanyahu was motivated by "narrow, personal, and legal reasons."
Unless a last-minute agreement is achieved, the parliament, or Knesset, will be dissolved at midnight and the next national elections would be held on March 23, the fourth elections in Israel in less than two years.
Netanyahu is facing a criminal trial for corruption charges in three separate cases.