In surprise close call, Lapid holds on to party leadership by a mere 29 votes
Opposition leader wins only 52 percent of vote in leadership contest he was expected to breeze through; thanks opponent Ram Ben Barak for ‘a fair race’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid beat out opponent MK Ram Ben Barak by the skin of his teeth in Thursday afternoon’s Yesh Atid primary, the party’s first leadership contest since it was founded by Lapid in 2012.
Having been expected to win with a commanding lead, Lapid won by a mere 29 votes among the 720 members of the party conference, 587 of which cast votes. Lapid received 308 votes (52.5%) to Ben Barak’s 279 (47.5%).
Speaking after the results were tallied, Lapid thanked Ben Barak “for a fair race.”
“The primaries are over, but our war has only just begun,” he said, insisting that there is “no one but us who offers this country a different vision and a different direction. Everyone surrendered and went and settled under Netanyahu, and only we remained, so only we will make the change.
“This government is responsible for the greatest disaster that happened to the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and it has one goal, and one goal only: to forget about it. To have us forget it happened on their watch. There is no country in the world, not even one, where these people would stay in office even one more day.”
Lapid added: “We need a government that will recruit ultra-Orthodox [to the military] without fear, that will write a constitution, that will invest our money in state education and small businesses and technology, that will build our ties with the United States and the moderate Arab countries instead of destroying them, that instead of insulting people will bring people together.
“2024 is an election year. There will be elections. The change this country needs starts here and starts now. It’s time to write a new chapter in the life of this party, and in the life of this country.”
Lapid served as prime minister for the second half of 2022 in the short-lived unity government led by him and right-wing politician Naftali Bennett.
Despite his stated desire to return to the Prime Minister’s Office, he currently trails both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity parties in polls.
A Channel 13 survey broadcast earlier this month found that if elections were held with the current political parties running, National Unity would win 34 seats, Likud would win 17, and Yesh Atid would take 14.
First announced late last year, only days before Hamas’s October 7 attacks, the vote was postponed from its original December date due to the war. Lapid, who has long maintained a strong hold over the party, had been widely expected to sweep the vote, and Thursday’s tally came as a surprise to many.
Addressing his supporters in a video message posted to Twitter on Thursday afternoon, Lapid called for their “strength and backing,” arguing that if the party wants to make a strong showing in the next general election, his “must be a convincing victory.”
Ben Barak had not presented a strong challenge to the longtime leader, stating repeatedly that he does not differ materially in his policy outlook from Lapid and is mainly running in order to promote the “democratization” of the party, which has been under the same leadership for over a decade.
“I think renewal and refreshment is a good thing for the party,” Ben Barak told Hebrew daily Israel Hayom last month.
“The difference between Lapid and myself is that I have a collaborative management method — I often pay attention and listen and am not afraid to change my decisions if I hear a different opinion. On the contrary, I encourage different opinions and encourage strong people around me. And Lapid works differently,” he said.
A former deputy head of the Mossad spy agency, Ben Barak entered politics in 2019 and served as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the previous government of Lapid and Naftali Bennett.
He recently made waves internationally when he called on the international community to take in Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip, an appeal that he later said was misunderstood as a call for population transfer.
Speaking with national broadcaster Kan following his loss, Ben Barak stated that given the fact that “half of the party” supported him, he would probably insist on taking the number two slot on its list in the next general election — and said that he would run for the leadership again.
