Activists paving way for Sa’ar to run for Likud leadership

Likud central committee activists have begun collecting signatures to put former minister Gideon Sa’ar on the internal ballot to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the party leadership.

The news came as senior coalition partner Yisrael Beytenu announced it would oppose any move for Netanyahu to form a new government in this parliament in a last ditch bid to avoid elections.

Sa’ar, a popular former interior minister who quit politics in the fall in a surprise move, needs 500 signatures by party members for his candidacy in the early January primary to be considered.

The man himself has given no indication that he is planning a political comeback. The activists said they want to ensure he is technically able to do so should he choose to.

Party members believe they will garner enough signatures by Tuesday, when the Likud central committee meets to set primaries, Israel Radio reported.

Sa’ar was a rising force within the Likud until he left his post as the interior minister in November. Education minister from 2009-2013, he is regarded as more hawkish than Netanyahu and is considered to be emblematic of the party’s younger, conservative bloc. He left the government in November — saying he wanted to spend time with his family, having recently remarried, and that his relationship with the prime minister was not as good as it had been. It was widely presumed that he would eventually return to politics in order to challenge the prime minister for the party leadership, but the rapid collapse of the coalition, after just 20 months, may have come to soon for him.

Netanyahu’s approval rating has fallen dramatically in the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, this summer’s 50-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, and it there has been growing perceived discontent within the right-wing flank of the Likud.

A Channel 2 poll published Saturday revealed that 65 percent of Israelis do not want Netanyahu to be the next prime minister following elections.

On Monday, the Knesset is expected to vote to dissolve itself, paving the way for a vote on March 17.

Netanyahu’s coalition fell apart last week and he fired senior ministers Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni amid heated legislative battles and his claims of an attempted “putsch,” denied by Lapid and Livni.

Netanyahu has denied reports that he has been seeking to form a new coalition with ultra-Orthodox parties and thus avoid elections.

He held a late-night meeting with Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman Saturday night to get his support, according to Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. But Liberman’s party, which ran with Likud in the last election, said in a press release Sunday that it would not support Netanyahu if he decided to seek other parties for a coalition.

“Establishing an alternative government now … where every single member of the Knesset can threaten and blackmail, means continued political instability and a return to elections only to waste billions more in order to maintain a shaky coalition,” the statement read.

“Although our opinion is that this is not the right time for the country to hold elections, the option of setting up another government now is even worse,” the statement added. “If the die is cast and we go to elections, we should do it properly — without tricks and ‘stinking maneuvers.'”

Netanyahu denied Sunday that he had approached Liberman about an alternate coalition and said that the vote and elections would go ahead as planned.