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Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Likud to hold primaries for its electoral slate by July 28
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAriela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party will hold primaries for its Knesset slate no later than July 28, says Tourism Minister Haim Katz in a statement.
Katz, who chairs the party’s constitution committee and heads the Likud Central Committee, says the committee voted unanimously on the matter today. It did not set a specific date for the primaries.
A separate leadership primary was held in November, in which Netanyahu was the only candidate and was thus reelected as party chief.
Ahead of the 2022 election, a planned leadership race was canceled after then-No. 2 Yuli Edelstein, the only senior figure to publicly challenge Netanyahu, capitulated to pressure to withdraw his candidacy. Edelstein is widely expected to depart Likud ahead of the upcoming election.
Likud, which holds 32 seats in the outgoing Knesset, uses a complex primary system to determine much, though not all, of its candidate list. It is one of only a handful of Israeli parties that selects its Knesset slate through primaries, alongside the left-wing Democrats party, which is expected to announce internal elections in the coming weeks, and Hadash, which held primaries last month.
Polls conducted in recent months have generally projected Likud, currently the largest party in the Knesset, dropping to between 24 and 27 seats, bringing it neck-and-neck with or only slightly overtaking the Together slate of former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.
The Times of Israel Community.