Gantz says his centrist party will open its ranks in order to ‘expand’

National Unity has spent the past two years establishing “a field system with hundreds of activists and municipal representatives,” and now it is time to open up the party’s ranks, chairman Benny Gantz states, less than a day after it was announced that the centrist party would hold a leadership contest in the coming months.

Addressing reporters ahead of the centrist party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Gantz says that “we have built foundations and now it is time to expand and consolidate on the institutional level as well.”

“[MK] Gadi [Eisenkot], I and other members sat for hours to formulate the next steps in full partnership, and we reached agreement on the principles that were presented yesterday to the faction,” he says, adding that this includes “a significant expansion of the general assembly and the transfer of powers to it, including the election of the party chairman.”

“This is just the beginning,” he asserts, stating that the goal is to “strengthen the party” for the long term.

In a statement on Sunday, the party said that as part of the process of opening its ranks, the “party assembly will be renewed and significantly enlarged” and “elections for the party leadership will be held.”

Asked by reporters if he would run for the party chairmanship, party number two Eisenkot welcomes the move and says that he “will do whatever it takes so that we win the next elections” but declines to answer definitively.

A Channel 12 survey aired earlier this year found mounting support for Eisenkot to replace Gantz at the head of National Unity. The poll found that following former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s return to politics, the party would win several more seats with Eisenkot in charge than with Gantz.