Netanyahu faces Danon as Likud chooses leader, Knesset slate

Registered Likud members went to the polls Wednesday to elect the head of the party and its list of Knesset members. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is standing against former deputy defense minister Danny Danon in the race for the top spot in the party and is expected to win easily.

The 96,000 registered party supporters were also voting on approving or rejecting the decision by the party headquarters to allow the prime minister to hold open two slots on the Knesset slate, No. 11 and No. 23, for candidates personally appointed by him.

The ballots opened at 9:00 a.m. and were to close at 10:00 p.m. The results of the vote should be available by Thursday morning.

Seventy candidates, including 17 MKs, are running in the party primary, vying for a slot giving them a realistic chance to serve in the 20th Knesset.

Netanyahu came to the polling station at the Jerusalem Convention Center with his wife Sara. “These primaries will decide who will receive authority to lead Likud and safeguard the state,” he said. “We need a good list and I asked for the right to hold two slots. Likud is among the few factions that have democratic internal elections.”

Danon, speaking to Ynet on Wednesday morning, said that the primaries in Likud “were democracy at its finest. One hundred thousand people wake up to come to the ballot and make a stand. I am proud of my faction.”

Referring to Netanyahu’s candidacy in the primary, Danon said “it is clear this day that the leading candidate is Netanyahu but people will come and think who to vote for at the polling stations, what they decide is a democracy.”

Danon, who served as deputy defense minister, was fired by Netanyahu during the summer war between Israel and Hamas. In media appearances and in his public statements Danon consistently took a more hawkish stance than Netanyahu and overtly criticized his boss’s management of the campaign.

In several press conferences during the war, Netanyahu scolded dissenting voices from within the government who he said were harming the government’s position vis-a-vis Hamas and in the international arena. Danon was even featured in a Hamas propaganda clip as proof of what they called Netanyahu’s weakness and indecisiveness.

On Monday, the Likud comptroller cleared the way for Netanyahu to run in the primary after he was temporarily disqualified for conduct which the comptroller, Shai Galili, said was in violation of Israel’s Party Law.

Netanyahu was instructed by the top court of Likud to dismiss three of his advisers, who also hold positions in the management of the party, until Wednesday at midnight or longer if the primary enters a second round, as a condition for allowing him to stand in the primary.