Herzog may delay Labor primary in bid to stave off challengers

Labor party leader MK Isaac Herzog is reportedly working to delay the party’s primary election until August 2017 in an apparent bid to stave off a major challenge to his leadership from Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.

The move appears to have the support of party leaders.

A proposal to delay the primary is expected to be presented to the Labor party conference which is slated to meet at an as-yet unspecified date in the coming weeks, the Knesset Channel reported Tuesday.

Sources close to Herzog denied the party leader has made any decision about the primary date, which according to party bylaws is his to set, with the approval of the party conference.

MK Eitan Cabel, a key party organizer who chairs the Knesset Economy Committee, announced his support for such a move on Tuesday. “If they bring such a proposal, I’ll support it,” he was quoted as saying by the NRG news site.

But some party lawmakers were less welcoming of the idea.

“Chairman Herzog has the right to offer his proposals, but there will also be other proposals,” MK Erel Margalit, once considered a Herzog ally, said laconically on Tuesday.

MK Miki Rosenthal was less sanguine. “The Labor Party is a democratic party, and Herzog’s intention to make a grab to extend his term [as party leader] until the end of 2017 without asking for the voters’ trust is a blatant trampling of that democracy,” he said.

“No Labor chairman before him, including the most loved and admired among them, dared to demand such a thing, and [Herzog] has no legal, political or moral right to carry out such a dirty trick to extend his term. Let him run in primaries, and if he’s elected we will accept his leadership with all due respect.”

Labor has a long record of internal turmoil over party leadership, with more than 10 leadership changes in the last two decades.

Herzog’s move, if successful, may stymie efforts to unseat him.

In September, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai called for new primaries “as soon as possible” in order to prepare the party for national elections “as if they were happening tomorrow.”

While Huldai has not formally announced he is running for party leader, Labor officials and internal polls say he is organizing a camp within the party to back his bid.

MK Shelly Yachimovich, who led Labor between 2011-2013 and who is second only to Herzog on the party’s Knesset roster, is also a likely contender.

Another possible challenger to Herzog also took steps to make a bid against him in recent months. Former party chair and current Hatnua MK Amir Peretz informed his party leader MK Tzipi Livni he would be competing for a place in the Labor list in the next election. Peretz also sent holiday greetings to Labor activists during the Jewish New Year in September.

Labor and Hatnua are part of the shared Zionist Union list in the Knesset, which Herzog chairs.