Three days after elections, Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon on Friday hinted to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he would not automatically join his coalition.

“Kulanu is a party with a platform. The results of the elections are clear, but our platform was and will remain the essence,” he wrote on Facebook.

“We intend to hold coalition negotiations based exactly on what we promised the public. We did not come to talk or grab a chair. We came to make a change, we came to solve problems, we came to repair society,” continued Kahlon.

“None of us were born in the government. None of us have to be there,” he concluded.

Kulanu won ten seats in the elections and has been widely speculated to be an integral part of the Likud-led government, which Netanyahu has said would include his “natural partners”.

In fact, Netanyahu promised Kahlon the finance portfolio two days before the elections, saying Kahlon will be Finance Minister regardless of the number of seats Kulanu receives.

Kahlon, for his part, rejected Netanyahu’s promise, noting on Facebook that, “Netanyahu already promised me control of the Israel Land Administration and the Finance Ministry in the past, but he did not keep his word.”

Kahlon’s chilly response to Netanyahu came despite his repeatedly claiming he would join any coalition that gives him the finance portfolio, and may give credence to Likud fears Kahlon will recommend Labor leader Yitzhak Herzog for prime minister. 

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)