The ongoing internal drama within the Likud, one of the last remaining democratic parties in Israel, reached another juncture this week ahead of Tuesday's primary vote.
The spat between former Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now being fought out in the open after the latter took out a political contract on the former.
Even though the Likud is often regarded as a one-man show, and rightly so, there are a variety of reasons why Netanyahu really needs Likud voters to select good candidates in Tuesday's vote.
A good Knesset candidate list would allow his party to compete on a level playing field with the flash-in-the-pan anti-democratic parties whose leaders handpick the Knesset slate.
Sa'ar is Netanyahu's nemesis. Netanyahu's loyalists will try their best to make sure he ends up way down on the party's Knesset list. But Netanyahu's detractors will try to do the opposite.
In recent days, Netanyahu has once again sounded the alarm that Sa'ar is plotting to unseat him as prime minister immediately after the election.
Netanyahu's allegations were revealed several months ago in this paper, and now Netanyahu wants to remind everyone who Sa'ar really is.
Ironically, it might turn out that his all-out effort to single him out will only make his candidacy that much stronger. Tuesday night will answer that question.
Netanyahu has effectively endorsed about 15 of the 30 Likud MKs and ministers vying for a safe spot in the Knesset.
As Israel Hayom has revealed, Netanyahu has made it clear whom he supports and who won't get his endorsement. Netanyahu denied he has a political "hit list," insisting he supports everyone, but this has not been too convincing.
Netanyahu doesn't just want to ensure his loyalists are elected. He also wants to make sure the winners in today's primaries have a good track record and experience, he wants people from different backgrounds, as well as women and immigrants, to counterbalance the lists presented by the Israel Resilience Party, Yesh Atid, Kulanu and Yisrael Beytenu – all of whom have their candidate lists handpicked by the leaders.
Netanyahu tried and failed to lower the electoral threshold from 3.25% and therefore there is a real risk that one or two small right-wing parties will not win enough votes to enter the Knesset. If such a scenario materializes, Netanyahu may not get the presidential nod to form the next government.
In contrast to the Left, there are no leadership battles on the Right. Netanyahu is the uncontested leader of the Right and that is why he has taken the liberty of meddling in the affairs of other parties in an effort to guarantee that the Right stays in power.
There is a very real chance that the Arab parties and the Left will win enough votes to form a de facto alliance that would deny the Right and the ultra-Orthodox a parliamentary majority, bringing Netanyahu's premiership to an end. If the right-wing parties continue to snooze this could very well happen.
Netanyahu is preparing for the possibility that Likud would have to run on a joint ticket with the smaller parties. That is why he is asking voters on Tuesday to approve a measure that would allow him to handpick candidates in certain spots on the Knesset list.
Some in Likud think he would ultimately pick his loyalists within the party but the measure is expected to pass easily. The Likud, unlike other parties, may still be a democracy. But Netanyahu has the final democratic say.
