Benjamin Netanyahu has been handed over the mandate and tasked to form the new government in Israel after a series of election campaigns and the end of the consultations on Sunday.

Netanyahu will be taking up the position of Israel’s Prime Minister for a record sixth time. “After a series of election campaigns, the people decided clearly in favour of establishing a government headed by me,” Netanyahu announced in a tweet.

Netanyahu thanked all the members of the Knesset who recommended him to take up the position and said that it will be a stable and successful government which will work for the benefit of all the residents of the country.

“I would like to thank all 64 members of the Knesset who recommended me. We will do everything so that, with God’s help, it will be a stable and successful government, a responsible and dedicated government, which will work for the benefit of all the residents of the country without exception,” he wrote on Twitter.

Notably, Israeli President Isaac Herzog made the announcement on Friday after meeting with all the factions in parliament.

As the mandate has been handed over to him by President Herzog to take the charge, Benjamin Netanyahu will have 28 days to form a new government, with the possibility of a 14-day extension if required as per Israeli law, reported CNN.

Netanyahu, 73, clinched victory in the national election as final results showed that the pro-Netanyahu bloc had got 64 Knesset seats, Times of Israel reported.

Israelis had headed to the ballots in an unprecedented fifth election since 2019, as the country’s political system has been immobilized for almost four years. The parliament has 120 seats.

Over 6.7 million eligible voters cast their votes in 12,495 ballots, according to figures issued by the Central Elections Committee. Some 18,000 police officers were deployed throughout the country for preventing fraud attempts and manage traffic and security.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, has returned to power with his right-wing Likud party in a far-right and Jewish ultra-Orthodox coalition. He had served as prime minister for 12 consecutive years before being ousted in June 2021 by a cross-partisan coalition led by Lapid.