The Likud party’s glass ceiling

With the results of the primaries in, the new Likud Knesset slate is featured prominently in all three Hebrew national dailies on Friday, and the party’s unexpected winners (Miri Regev) and losers (Moshe Feiglin, Tzipi Hotovely) take center stage.

Summing up the results, Yedioth Ahronoth writes the primaries “pushed out those considered radical, and crowned a new woman with the title of ‘the first lady of the party.’” But after touting Miri Regev as “the big winner of the day,” the paper points to the troubling lack of female representation on the new list. In the last Knesset, there were four women on the Likud list, compared to two in the new lineup’s top 20, it notes.

The paper quotes sources close to the prime minister, who say he is expected to add a female candidate to one of the reserved spots, and is presently in touch with “a well-known woman to add her to the list.”

Haaretz, citing unnamed Likud sources, also notes that another woman will likely be added to the Likud party list to boost the female representation.

Over at Israel Hayom, columnist Mati Tuchfeld echoes the concerns about the limited number of female candidates on the party list.

“Netanyahu’s problem was and continues to be with regard to the women [in his party]. The first woman [on the party list] is not who the prime minister expected, and the lack of women overall is keenly felt. In the ruling party, this simply will not do.”

Yedioth maintains that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely encounter internal squabbling in distributing the ministerial portfolios in the next Knesset.

“Another problem Netanyahu will have to deal with is the number of candidates [in the Likud] — at least 11 — who view themselves as worthy of being a government minister… But due to a law passed in the last Knesset by the head of the Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid, the next government will be permitted to appoint 18 ministers at most — which means that many of the Likud candidates will be disappointed.”

Regev, meanwhile, tells the paper she is certain that she will be a minister in the next Knesset, a statement scoffed at by unnamed Netanyahu confidants quoted by the paper.

“If she thinks she has a portfolio in the next government, she’s wrong,” a source said. “The placement on the party list does not determine the appointment of ministers.” According to the source, Netanyahu promised MK Gila Gamliel (who came in at 14th place) she would be a minister in the next Knesset.

Over in Haaretz, the paper does not conceal its disdain for the new Likud lineup, writing in its news report that it “is considered right-wing and dull.

“Due to Feiglin’s fall — the symbol of the right-wing in the Likud — Netanyahu and his followers called the list ‘moderate, representative, and balanced,’ even though it included hawkish members like Regev, Levin, Danon and Elkin,” it reports.

With regard to Hotovely and Feiglin, the paper writes that their exclusion will likely drive some voters away from the Likud toward the Jewish Home party.

The daily dedicates its editorial to Likud MK Yariv Levin’s efforts to delay the release of an investigation of the Gaza war until after the elections.

“Apparently, he has good reason for concern: The investigation deals with lapses in the army’s preparedness and in the assembly of the intelligence picture during and prior to the war, as well as the fierce disagreements that raged in the ministerial security committee during the war and influenced how it was conducted. The findings of the probe are expected to expose the Likud party and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to public criticism,” it writes.

The postponement, which diverts public attention from Netanyahu’s potential leadership failings, is undemocratic, it continues.

“It is the right of the public to understand the basis of this criticism and to decide whom to vote for based on these findings as well. Deprivation of such a right constitutes the improper politicization of the systems of checks and balances that are meant to function free of political interference in a democratic country.”