Will only run for Knesset. Feiglin.
Photo: Ido Erez
Feiglin drops out of race for Likud leadership
Hardline MK says decision to unite races for party leadership and Knesset list on the same day will make it impossible for him to run for both.
Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, who ran against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the head of the party in the last election campaign, decided on Thursday to drop out of the primaries for the 2015 elections. This leaves Netanyahu facing MK Danny Danon.
Feiglin decided to drop from the race for the Likud leadership over the Likud Court's decision to accept Netanyahu's appeal and hold the primaries for both the party leadership and for its Knesset list on the same day - December 31.
"The Likud court's decision to accept the appeal is changing the rules of the game and forcing me to run an impossible campaign on two different fronts at the same time," Feiglin said. "I don't mean to drag the movement into another court battle a moment before the general elections."
MK Moshe Feiglin (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
According to Feiglin, "at this fateful hour, we must unite and keep the Likud as the ruling party. That is why I intend to run only for the Knesset this time, and I am convinced I will receive wide support to returning the Likud and the national camp to its path. In any real primaries in the future, I will once again run for the leadership of the movement and the country."
MK Danon, who also serves as the head of the Likud delegates, clarified he wasn't dropping from the race for leadership.
"I'll continue running and fighting to bring the Likud back to its true path. On December 31, Likud members will come to the polls and decide if the movement is going to go back to the path it's been leading since the state's establishment - the path of the right. Democratic values and traditions will continue being our guiding principles and those are what differentiates Likud from parties in which democracy turned into a dirty word."
An extended panel of judges at the Likud court reversd a previous decision on Wednesday and determined the primaries for the party's leadership and for the party's Knesset list will both be held on December 31, the way Netanyahu wanted it.
