Likud lawmaker David Bitan mounted a last-minute challenge Monday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to replace the party’s traditional primary system with a more centralized method of selecting candidates for the next Knesset election.
Hours before a decisive meeting of Likud’s Constitution Committee, Bitan released a video urging members to support his alternative proposal, which would preserve full party primaries while giving Netanyahu a limited number of reserved slots on the candidate list.
(Photo: Yuval Chen, Shaul Golan, Nadav Abas, Yoav Dudkevitch, Shutterstock)
“Anyone who grew up in Likud is Likud,” Bitan said. “Anyone brought in from outside is not necessarily Likud.”
Under Bitan’s plan, Likud members would continue to elect the party’s national slate in full primaries. Netanyahu would receive five reserved positions among the top 50 candidates, including three in the top 30, at Nos. 2, 6, 16, 39 and 48.
Nine regional representatives would also be elected directly by registered members in their districts, rather than through a smaller internal party mechanism.
Bitan insisted that his proposal was not directed against Netanyahu.
“I have always supported him,” he said. “Likud is a democratic party, and its candidates should be chosen democratically.”
He argued that Netanyahu’s preferred frameworks would effectively dismantle the existing primary system by giving the prime minister and an appointments committee sweeping control over the slate.
“We must not move to an appointments committee, or to a primary that is really an appointments committee,” Bitan said. “We are fighting over the character of Likud for years to come.”
Likud lawmaker Osher Shekalim also criticized the scale of Netanyahu’s proposed intervention.
“I do not think there is room for so many reserved positions,” he told ynet. “That harms our democratic fabric. We are not Yesh Atid.”
Netanyahu’s main proposal would divide selection of the next Likud list into three equal parts: one-third chosen in primaries, one-third selected by an appointments committee and one-third determined by the prime minister.
A second Netanyahu-backed option would go further, allowing an appointments committee to place sitting ministers and lawmakers while restricting primaries mainly to regional and representation slots.
Likud officials estimate that Netanyahu could receive at least seven reserved positions under either framework.
The dispute comes amid growing tension inside the governing party and a series of meetings Netanyahu has held with ministers and lawmakers as he seeks to prevent an internal revolt before the expected dissolution of the Knesset on July 17.