Israel’s Likud announces two candidates for reserved slots
In Israel, the Likud party announced that it will allocate reserved places on its electoral list to Talik Gvili, the mother of fallen serviceman Ran Gvili, and Elisha Medan, a reservist who was severely wounded in the Gaza Strip and lost both legs. The Jerusalem Post reports.
At the same time, a dispute continues within the party over other reserved places that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to fill, as well as over the procedure for approving the candidates. Likud’s party court was due to convene on Tuesday to determine whether the secretariat’s vote on these appointments would be open or secret.
Approval procedure
The dispute concerns the procedure under which the secretariat will approve the list of candidates proposed by Netanyahu, as well as the time that secretariat members will have to review the names and consult. According to Likud officials, in recent years secretariat decisions were sometimes approved by telephone, which did not allow for a joint substantive discussion of arguments for and against the candidates.
Following the intervention of the party court, an in-person discussion of the proposed names is expected. Likud officials believe this could lead to a compromise: Netanyahu may receive approval for some of the appointments he needs, while some lawmakers elected in the primaries but placed in unfavorable positions may move higher on the list.
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A demand for a secret ballot requires the support of 10% of all secretariat members. In an open vote, the party leadership will know the position of each participant, while a secret vote will make it possible to vote against individual appointments without direct confrontation with the party leadership.
Six vacant positions
On the eve of the final deadline for submitting party lists, Netanyahu had not yet filled all the reserved places available to him. Oren Dobronsky, whom Netanyahu had previously planned to give such a position, said he was declining it. If a government headed by Netanyahu is formed, he would prefer to hold a professional ministerial post responsible for artificial intelligence.
After this decision, Netanyahu had six reserved places remaining in realistic positions on the list. According to the publication, several other people whom he approached with an offer to join the list also declined.
