Netanyahu said to weigh giving reserved Likud spots to MKs who fared badly in party primary

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be weighing placing several Likud MKs who fared poorly in Monday’s party primary in some of the slots the Likud Central Committee agreed to reserve for his personal choices.

There are three such slots remaining in the first 25 places on Likud’s Knesset slate — 3rd, 7th and 11th. Likud is currently polling at around 22-23 seats ahead of the October 27 election.

Reserved slots have already been allocated to Defense Minister Israel Katz (4th on the slate), Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar (5th), and Likud Central Committee chair Haim Katz (18th). Netanyahu last week named businessman Oren Dobronsky to the 9th slot.

Among those Netanyahu may choose to elevate to more realistic slots on the slate are MKs Tsega Melaku, Keti Shitrit, Ze’ev Elkin and Hanoch Milwidsky, the Kan broadcaster says.

Elkin, who told Kan that he has not pushed for a reserved slot, is a former Likud lawmaker who rejoined the party as part of the recent merger with Sa’ar’s New Hope faction. Milwidsky, the chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, enjoys the support of ultra-Orthodox voters. He is currently being investigated for rape.

Earlier this week, Kan reported that Netanyahu was considering appointing Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter to one of the reserved spots after Dichter failed to secure a realistic spot in the primary.

Netanyahu has also reportedly been seeking to save realistic slots to be used if necessary to bolster the chances of his current coalition bloc. He may need to encourage Itamar Ben Gvir, of the far-right Otzma Yehudit, to agree to a technical merger with fellow far-right leader Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, which is in danger of falling below the minimum threshold to enter Knesset, and could try to sweeten the deal by giving a representative of one of those parties a Likud slot. Similarly, he may want to encourage one or more members of the numerous small right-leaning parties that are running to abandon their Knesset bids if they risk falling below the threshold, by giving them a Likud slot.

Although it is unlikely, there has also been speculation that Netanyahu will place his son Yair — who has mostly lived abroad in Miami, Florida, since March 2023 — in one of the reserved slots. The younger Netanyahu is known for his provocative social media presence and association with far-right European and American politicians and public figures.

Asked about the possibility during an interview with the Knesset Channel, former MK Michael Kleiner, the current president of the Likud’s internal Supreme Court, said yesterday that appointing Yair Netanyahu to the Likud slate would be legal according to the party constitution.

Given that Netanyahu’s Likud party has consistently been polling in the low 20s, and given that roughly one-third of the first 30 slots on the Likud slate are reserved for candidates handpicked by the premier, almost all of those who did not finish in the primary’s top 16 in the primary are not expected to make it into the next Knesset.