Shelly Yachimovich. Photo: Wikimedia commons.

Israel’s Channel 2 is reporting that Israel’s Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich has said she will do everything in her power to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a coalition.  Yair Lapid, who appears to be a surprise winner in Tuesday’s election, with his party Yesh Atid expected to earn 19 seats, has reportedly already been in touch with her in an effort to convince her to join a Netanyahu-led coalition with him.

Israeli journalist Gad Harel told The Algemeiner, however, that Yachimovich is resolute in her convictions. “She thinks she will be able to form a coalition without Netanyahu, a center-left coalition with Lapid,” he said.

Yachimovich wrote on her Facebook page she was hoping for a “revolution, and the end of the Netanyahu government.”

She added, “There is an opportunity not to be missed to free citizens of Israel of persecution by the Netanyahu government, and these negotiations need to be done seriously and discreetly, because the fate of society depends on it.”

Even without Yachimovich, who’s been unequivocal about Labor being opposition-bound, Netanyahu could assemble a stable ruling coalition with very different policies from the outgoing government. Netanyahu was weakened considerably, with exit polls showing his Likud-Beitenu party only expected to earn 31 seats in the Knesset.