Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Primary colours

With the Israeli elections two months away--February 10, 2009--it's party primary season. The three larger (secular) parties, Kadima, Labour, Likud and Mertez scheduled their primaries for early December. The other parties, the religious ones -- Shas, UTJ -- have their Rabbis pick them (for ritual purity perhaps?) and a number of right-wing parties have their central committee (Bayit Hayehudi) pick their list or the Chair like Yisrael Beytenu picks his list (trusted followers?).

According to recent polls as reported in The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, Likud is leading with between 31-36 seats (depending on the poll you rely upon), Kadima 24-27 and Labour around 12 seats.

Every party will put the best face on their primary/internal election results. Labour which held their delayed -- the computers crushed so they pushed the elections off a couple of days -- last Thursday (4 November) expressed their satisfaction that their list is a winner, even if others view as it as an acceptance of being an opposition party.

Likud also had computer problems which forced it to keep its polls open another three hours, until 1:00 Wednesday the 9th. Once its results were published, the debate began on the "Feiglin Effect" as Moshe Feiglin the "Jewish Leadership" faction chair received the 20th place and his followers also received other 'realistic' places on the list. On one hand, he's viewed as a right wing reactionary who seeks to dispose the (Palestinian) Arab population in Israel and destroy the Palestinian Authority/Gaza, a fascist. Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to push him off the list by having the regional representatives fill the 21-37 slots and women fill the 10 and 20 slots. If his advisers convince the party's election council to accept its appeal, Feiglin will mus likely not receive a seat in the next Knesset. Personally, it's all politics, which could back fire on Likud and Netanyahu. Currently, despite Netanyahu's best efforts (which only gave Feiglin great attention and success/legitimacy) and Feiglin's place on the list, Likud has increased its popularity.

Next up, on Sunday the 14th is Meretz followed on the 17th with Kadima primaries. They will be having a paper ballot.

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