Ministerial committee advances bill aimed at complicating Bennett’s plans to run in election

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves a bill aimed at hampering or preventing former prime minister Naftali Bennett from running in the next election.

The legislation, sponsored by Likud MK Avichai Boaron, would require any new party established by a chairman whose previous party dissolved within the past seven years to assume responsibility for paying off that party’s outstanding debts before being able to use campaign funds raised for his new party to pay for its electoral campaign.

The legislation is widely believed to target former Bennett, whose new party, currently known as Bennett 2026, is seen as the primary contender against Netanyahu in the next election.

Bennett, who led the now-defunct right-wing Yamina party, has been out of office since the 2022 collapse of his diverse governing coalition, which in 2021 ousted Netanyahu from the premiership following a period of political turmoil that saw four national elections in three years.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, Yamina has NIS 17 million ($5 million) in debts while another former Bennett party, Jewish Home, owes NIS 3 million ($913,000).

Approval by the committee means the government officially supports a bill and will back it in the Knesset, where it needs to pass an initial vote and three additional readings before being passed into law.

Responding to the committee’s approval, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz insists that while “it is right to amend the… law in a way that prevents a party leader from running under a different name, leaving millions in debts at the public’s expense, as in the case of Naftali Bennett and as others have done before him… it is not right to enact such a law retroactively and in a personal manner.”