JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In a highly controversial vote on Wednesday, Israel’s Knesset elected attorney Michael Rabello, who had previously served as Prime Minister Netanyahu’s personal lawyer on many occasions, as the country’s next State Comptroller. The vote was immediately met with fierce opposition backlash, with critics alleging the process was tainted by coercion, threats, and political interference.

In the initial vote, former High Court justice Yosef Elron edged Rabello 60-57 but did not have the majority of the Knesset required to carry the vote. After this vote demonstrated that there were numerous defectors from the coalition, Netanyahu met with several MKs and tried to persuade the Likud faction to take selfies of themselves behind the ballot box with Rabello’s name, and some did document their votes. In the second vote, Rabello won by 61-57.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Rabello on his election, saying he would invite him to a working meeting in the coming days. “We will work together in full cooperation for the benefit of the public service in the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Rabello is an alumnus of the Har Etzion yeshiva in Alon Shvut, and his brother Rabbi Amos Rabello is a Dayan on the Eretz Chemdah Kollel’s Beis Din.

Opposition figures were far less happy. Former PM Naftali Bennett alleged that Likud MKs voted under duress. “These were not free votes, but blackmail with threats by Likud MKs who are under the threat of a price tag from the boss,” Bennett said, calling the process “fundamentally contaminated.” He argued that the vote should be disqualified outright.

Both Former PM Yair Lapid and MK Benny Gantz announced that they plan to submit petitions to the Supreme Court over what was described as a violation of vote secrecy and improper intervention by the Knesset Speaker on behalf of the Likud faction.

Democrats Chairman Yair Golan went further, accusing the coalition of behaving like a criminal organization. “What happened today in the Knesset plenary is the clear conduct of a criminal organization: extortion, threats and intimidation,” Golan said. Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Liberman questioned what Netanyahu had promised coalition members in exchange for their support, referring to Rabello as the PM’s “private lawyer.”

I24 news reported that Arab MKs received a document from a coalition source targeting Rabello’s rival candidate, retired judge Yosef Elron, and listing his rulings against Arab citizens in an apparent bid to turn Arab lawmakers against him.