Brot replaces vocal Netanyahu critic Bibas as head of Likud Municipal Committee

By Carrie Keller-Lynn 11 June 2023, 8:35 pm

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Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel

Federation of Local Authorities chair and Modiin Mayor Haim Bibas attends a Knesset Finance Committee meeting in Jerusalem, January 17, 2023. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Likud’s core group of party members elects representatives for its Municipal Committee, four months out from Israel’s country-wide municipal elections.

In line with recommendations from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, members of Likud’s Central Committee voted in Bat Yam Mayor Tzvika Brot to chair the panel responsible for Likud branch elections, and for divvying up budgets to candidates in October’s municipal contest.

Brot replaces Modiin Mayor Haim Bibas, who ran the committee in Israel’s prior two rounds of municipal contests, in 2018 and 2013. Bibas came out strongly against Netanyahu’s handling of his coalition’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, rallying fellow mayors to publicly call for Netanyahu to hit the skids, shortly before the premier actually did pause the legislation.

In May, reports circulated that Netanyahu planned to exact revenge on Bibas by not placing him atop of this year’s Municipal Committee.

Bibas, who also leads the association of Israel’s mayors, later clashed with the coalition by fighting against a budgetary provision to transfer municipal tax money from commercially successful cities to less industrial ones.