Nir Barkat registers for Likud primaries, officially entering national politics
Joining race for Knesset slate, former Jerusalem mayor says he hopes to bolster PM Netanyahu and the ruling party
Former Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat registered on Monday for the Likud party primaries scheduled for next month, marking his official entry into national politics after a decade at the helm of Israel’s capital city.
“I am excited to serve the State of Israel and the people of Israel, to put my shoulder to the wheel and harness my skills and experience in order to bolster Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and the Likud movement in its path, which I believe in with all my heart,” Barkat said in a statement.
“Together, combined with new and old allies, we will bolster the national camp and the Likud movement for a stronger and more powerful Israel,” he said.
The Likud primaries are scheduled for February 5. Israel goes to the polls on April 9.
In March, Barkat formally announced that he would not seek a third term as Jerusalem’s mayor and that, as many expected, he would instead run for the Knesset on the Likud party ticket.
Barkat, 58, who joined the ruling party in 2015, is a longtime backer of Netanyahu.
Barkat retained relatively high popularity in a city comprising religious, ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews, as well as Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Secular residents were seen to have made some gains during his tenure in the ongoing culture war over the city’s identity.
A major in the IDF reserves who earned a fortune at the start of the Israeli high-tech boom in the 1990s, Barkat entered politics in a failed bid for Jerusalem mayor against ultra-Orthodox candidate Uri Lupoliansky in 2003.
After serving as head of the opposition during Lupoliansky’s term, Barkat again ran as the secular candidate in the 2008 municipal elections, beating out ultra-Orthodox candidate Meir Porush. He was reelected in 2013.