Ex-minister Sa'ar nixes run for Likud leadership

Retired politician, seen as most realistic potential challenger to Netanyahu, being courted by Kulanu party head Kahlon

Former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar, widely considered to be the most realistic challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership of the party, announced on Thursday that he would not run in primaries reportedly being planned for the coming months.

Sa’ar called the snap primary a piece of theater on Twitter and said he would not participate.

“I’m not in the habit of being a marionette. I wish Netanyahu success in running, as well as to all of the other actors in the play,” he wrote in answer to a journalist’s query.

At the same time, Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon, a fellow former Likud minister, said he would be happy to run with Sa’ar.

Sa’ar was a veteran Likud MK when he stepped down from his post as interior minister in October 2014, saying that he was temporarily leaving politics to spend more time with his family.

He has criticized Netanyahu in the past for the prime minister’s political maneuvers surrounding party leadership.

Earlier on Thursday, Kahlon, who serves as finance minister in the Netanyahu-led government, told Israeli radio station 103 FM that it was possible that Sa’ar would run together with him in a future election.

Finance Minister, Moshe Kahlon (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“He and I are in close contact. If only it would work out with Gideon Sa’ar; he is a deserving man,” Kahlon said.

In the wake of Netanyahu’s hints about early primaries another potential challenger to the prime minister’s Likud chairmanship, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, announced Tuesday that he was officially joining the party.

Barkat announced his move in a tweet and a video posted to his Facebook page, mentioning his service in the last seven years as mayor of Jerusalem and explaining his reasons for broadening his perspective.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat talks to the media from the scene of a terror attack at the entrance to Jerusalem on December 14, 2015 (screen capture: Channel 2)

To allay suspicions that he would vie for party leadership in the next primaries, Barkat said that he plans to continue to serve as mayor of Jerusalem “at least until the end of the current term” in 2018.

Should Netanyahu win the early primaries, he could secure the leadership of Likud until 2023.