Struggles within the country’s largest party, according to all polls, the Likud party, ahead of the primaries that are due to take place in less than a week on July 3. At the center of the struggle is the decision of the party’s tribunal on Saturday to transfer the election of the district representatives on the party list from the center members to the functionaries in the constituencies.
In practice, the party center is not enthusiastic about the move, which is weakening their power, and claims that it was a snatch shortly before the primaries. According to some commentators, the new decision serves the party’s leader, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who seeks to restrain the powerful Knesset members and prevent them from having too much power. Netanyahu is in favor of the new method and is being criticized by senior party officials.
Some of the candidates who had hoped to be elected by the center and now only two weeks before the election, will have to change their entire strategy, angry and claiming that this is an illegal move by the tribunal and changing the election rules after they open.
Opponents of the move, however, claim that in the past, elements unidentified with Netanyahu or even the Likud managed to enter through the districts and later withdrew from the party, such as Michal Shir, close to Gideon Saar who entered the district and left the Likud with Saar.
This coming Wednesday, the Likud tribunal will hold a hearing on the issue. Wednesday is also the last day the list of candidates for the primaries will be finally closed but the election may be postponed in light of the legal battle expected by opponents of the move who threatened to appeal to the district court against the decision even if the party tribunal approves it.
Currently, the places that will be reserved for the districts are 19th for the Shefela district, 21 for the Galilee and Emekim districts and 22 for the Negev district. The 26th place is reserved for the Dan district and the 29th place for the coastal plain district. The swinging places according to the surveys are 34th place for the Haifa district and 36th place for the Jerusalem district.