Leadership feud threatens to split Shas

Former Shas chairman and Knesset member Eli Yishai may leave the party after reconciliation attempts with current party chairman and long-time rival Aryeh Deri appear to have failed.

Mounting pressure within the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party to remove Yishai from the electoral list ahead of the upcoming March 2015 elections could split the party into two separate factions.

Hostilities came to a head Wednesday during a meeting with the Council of Torah Sages, the party’s panel of spiritual advisers, where Yishai was presented with a list of conditions that Deri demanded be met before the two could reconcile.

Deri’s demands included that Yishai draft a letter of resignation that could be used at any time if the former chairman acted against the interests of the party, the website Kikar Hashabat reported.

Yishai, who refused to comply with Deri’s demands, called off a “unity” meeting between the two scheduled for Thursday.

In an interview with Kikar Hashabat, a source close to Yishai said that the former Shas chairman did not trust Deri and was sure that he would use the resignation letter to kick him out of the party.

A poll published Wednesday by Maariv and conducted by the Panels research group predicted that under Deri’s leadership Shas would win seven Knesset seats in the upcoming election, as opposed to nine under Yishai’s leadership.

The poll also found that if the tensions between the two leads to a split in the party, Deri’s faction would win four seats, while Yishai’s would win five, with both leaders making it over the 3.25 percent electoral threshold.

A splintered Shas could leave Deri and Yishai pitted against each other in the incoming government’s coalition talks.