The Likud primaries delivered dramatic results on Thursday, shaking up the party's Knesset slate and pushing long-serving lawmakers to unrealistic slots that would likely leave them out of the Knesset come the Nov. 1 elections.
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The party said that some 80,000 of its 140,000 registered members voted in the Aug. 10 primaries – a 58% voter turnout.
The final tally of the votes showed that several senior Likud MKs have been placed outside the top 10. Polls currently give Likud between 34-36 seats, but the chances of anyone outside of the top 10 being named as a minister are slim.
The slate currently indicates that Likud leader and opposition whip Benjamin Netanyahu will get what he wants in terms of keeping those he considers loyal to him at the forefront of the party.
MK Yariv Levin was slated at Likud's no. 2 – after Netanyahu, followed by Eli Cohen, Yoav Gallant and David Amsalem, while longtime MKs like Yuli Edelstein, Israel Katz, Gila Gamliel, and Tzachi Hanegbi were pushed surprisingly low on the roster.
Still, their placement may change if Netanyahu decides to "upgrade" them to one of the five slots the party has allowed him to reserve on the slate for personal appointments namely slots 14, 16, 28, 37, and 43.
The list will shift again once the various reserved seats for district nominees and women are applied – a measure Likud takes to ensure equal representation. This arrangement, however, means that for men, any slot lower than 19 would dramatically reduce their chances of serving in parliament, and the same goes for women placed below the 35th spot.
Barring various legal challenges or revisions in the counting, the top 10 Likud members are Netanyahu, Levin, Cohen, Gallant, Amsalem, Amir Ohana, Nir Barkat, Yoav Kisch, Miri Regev, Miki Zohar,
Excluding placement of reserves seats across the slate, which will push familiar names further down the list, the placements are as follows:
The second tier – slots 11-20 provisionally comprise Avi Dichter. Israel Katz, Shlomo Karhi, Danny Danon, David Bitan, Yuli Edelstein, Haim Katz, Galit Distel Atbaryan, Nissim Vaturi, and Shalom Danino.
The third tier – slots 21-30 – includes Haim Katz, Ofir Akunis, Tally Gotliv, Hanoch Milwidsky, Boaz Bismuth, Eli Dalal, Gila Gamliel, Ofir Katz, May Golan, and Eti Atiya
Placing on the fourth tier on the slate – 31-40 – Amit Halevi, Keti Shitrit, Moshe Pesel, Tzachi Hanegbi, Erez Tadmor, Keren Barak, Gilad Sharon, Orly Levy-Abekasis, Uzi Dayan, and Dorit Ohana.
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