Labor holds primary elections to determine Knesset list
Yachimovich, Cabel fighting for second spot on the list as Michaeli and Shaffir take center stage in primaries following their work in the last Knesset.
The Labor party, currently second in polls ahead of the March 17 elections, is holding its primaries on Tuesday, where its 48,904 delegates will choose the party's Knesset list.
The party's 400 polling stations opened 10am in 76 voting sites across the country. Delegates are asked to choose 8-10 candidates. The polls will close at 10pm, when counting starts in the party's control center in Bnei Brak.
Running for realistic spots on the list are 36 candidates, while six spots in the top 25 have already been taken as result of the Labor's union with Tzipi Livni's Hatnua. Spot 2 on the joint Labor-Hatnua list is reserved for Livni, spot 7 is reserved to Labor secretary-general Hilik Bar and spot 8 is reserved to returning Labor candidate Amir Peretz, who left the party ahead of the last elections to join Livni's Hatnua.
Current MKs in Isaac Herzog's party, each trying to reach a higher spot on the list, will be battling new candidates who will try to secure a spot that would send them to the 20th Knesset.
Unlike Likud, the Labor party decided to reserve spots for women in each group of five, leaving male candidates only 7 spots to fill in the top 20 spots. An MK that fails to secure his spot in the top 20 may find himself out of the Knesset after the elections.
Spots 20 to 25 include spots reserved for women, as well as representatives of neighborhoods and representatives from Hatnua.
Labor leader Herzog assured Ynet on Tuesday morning that "there are no deals and no hit lists. There's a good atmosphere at the top. Shelly Yachimovich and I are on good terms. We're all share the deep understanding the Labor party, after a generation, has an opportunity to take over the government."
Herzog went on to say he wasn't dealing with the formation of the next government just yet. "We have people from different walks of life. This is a party the people can relate to. We'll have a great list and I'm trying to change the people of Israel's mindset that there's no alternative to Netanyahu. I am the alternative to Netanyahu and we're the alternative for Likud."
Despite sweeping denials in the party, it appears that there is a fierce battle behind the scenes for the second spot on the list, after chairman Herzog. The two leading candidates battling for that spot are MK Eitan Cabel, and former chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich.
Yachimovich also found herself in internal battles against two women whose stock in the party is increasing: MKs Stav Shaffir and Merav Michaeli.
Shaffir is considered one of the prominent MKs in the last Knesset over her activity in the Finance Committee and her vocal confrontations with committee chair Nissan Slomiansky of Bayit Yehudi.
Michaeli, meanwhile, finished as the first woman on the list in the last primary elections, and was marked in the previous Knesset as one of the more exceptional legislators.
