Court orders Likud to postpone vote on expanding Netanyahu’s control over party slate

A vote planned for Wednesday by the 4,500-member Likud Central Committee on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to dramatically expand his control over the party’s Knesset slate was called off at the last minute, after the Lod District Court issued an injunction halting the process until all party members, not just the committee members, are allowed to participate in the vote.

Under the plan, approved by the party’s Constitution Committee earlier this week, Netanyahu would be granted eight reserved slots for candidates of his choice on the Likud list, including three in the top 10 and six in the top 20, as part of a compromise with committee chair and veteran Likud MK Haim Katz.

According to Ynet, Katz himself has been promised one of Netanyahu’s reserved spots if the proposal is accepted by the Likud Central Committee. Another will reportedly go to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, formerly a fierce rival of the prime minister.

The proposal has divided the party, with senior Likud MK David Bitan leading the opposition, as the plan would significantly increase the prime minister’s power over the slate. During the party’s last round of primaries in 2022, Netanyahu was allowed to handpick only three candidates among the top 30 spots on the list, with the highest being 14th.

The primaries ahead of this year’s October 27 election have already been postponed once, from August 4 until August 17, amid the ongoing dispute.

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Polls have projected that Likud’s number of mandates after the elections on October 27, will be in the low to mid-20s, out of the Knesset’s total 120. At present, the party has 32 Knesset members.

Thursday’s injunction from the Lod District Court was issued following several petitions to halt the vote over Netanyahu’s expanded control of the party slate, including one filed by the Likud Social Forum.

The petitions argued that, as is required for any proposal to change the way in which primaries are held, the vote must be open to all Likud members, rather than just the 4,500 Central Committee members.

The group called the court’s decision “a victory for common sense” and vowed to continue protecting the rights of all 150,000 of Likud’s registered members.

“We will not allow the elections to be stolen,” the group said.

In response, Likud said that Netanyahu “insists that every Likud member be able to exercise their right to vote.”

“Because legal delays disrupted the voting process and prevented many members from casting their ballots, the Likud chairman and prime minister instructed the party administration not to hold the vote today and to set a new date for a repeat vote in the near future,” the party added.

Prior to coming to an agreement with Katz, Netanyahu threatened last month to do away with the party’s primaries altogether and instead have an internal selection committee choose the party slate if he was not granted the power to choose 10 candidates within the first 35 spots.

He ultimately recanted amid opposition from senior party members.

However, a source close to the prime minister told Ynet on Thursday that even if the Likud Central Committee votes against expanding Netanyahu’s control over the election slate, he “will not give up.”

Instead, the news outlet quotes the source as saying that the prime minister will “start the process from the beginning: he will resubmit the proposal to the Constitution Committee and once again bring the resolution to a vote.”

Likud is one of the only major parties, and the largest, to hold primaries to select its candidates. The Arab-majority Hadash party held internal primaries in May, and Yair Golan’s Democrats are slated to hold their own primaries on July 20.