On Thursday, hours after the final results in the Likud primaries were announced, party leader Benjamin Netanyahu sent out a voice message to party members and the media saying that an excellent team had been chosen. In the same breath, he demanded "campaign discipline," including that candidates stick to campaign messages and coordinate interviews with the party campaign headquarters.
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Netanyahu is pleased with the list, but wants to be very careful. This is what he thinks about the list: it includes faces he is happy to present, like Yariv Levin, Amir Ohana, Yoav Gallant, Nir Barkat, Galit Distal Etbaryan, and Boas Bismuth. But there is also concern about unknown candidates lacking media experience who hold hawkish positions about the legal system. These candidates, with extremist remarks, could throw a wrench in Netanyahu's plan to reach out to the moderate Right.
One of the biggest winners in the primaries didn't even run – Gilad Erdan. Erdan preferred not to run this time and remain in his post as Israel's ambassador to the UN. He saw his former comrades in the party's top five, Yuli Edelstein and Israel Katz, get pushed down on the list and lose the title "leading Likud representatives," and maybe the chance of leading the party after Netanyahu steps down.
Erdan is unscathed. With the halo of former UN ambassador, he will return as a top candidate to follow Netanyahu. Other people who benefitted from the primaries are people who expressed loyalty to Netanyahu, and stayed close to him. His confidant Yariv Levin won the top spot on the list by a large margin. David Amsalam, Yoav Kisch, and Shlomo Karahi, who waged a vocal battle from the Opposition, moved up.
The disappointed include Edelstein, Israel Katz, Gila Gamliel, Nir Barkat – who was left out of the top five despite his hard work and financial investment – and other MKs who dropped out of the realistic places on the list entirely, such as Tzachi Hanegbi.
A sub-faction: The more Netanyahu secured ardent followers on the new party list, he could also have to deal with some embittered members. David Bitan was criticized for supporting Dudu Laniado and was surrounded by close friends from the faction. Add to that the fact that Israel Katz and Edelstein were pushed down on the list, and conspiracies could start spinning that in a scenario in which Netanyahu doesn't get 61 mandates, he could find himself waging a tough war on his home ground.
Will Likud voters show up on Nov. 1? One of the reasons Netanyahu is encouraged by the primaries is the high voter turnout. Of 140,000 eligible Likud voters, almost 80,000 cast ballots. Given the August heat and vacation, that's a nice number. But does it mean that Likudniks will turn out in force on election day?
But many Likud members, especially the ones who voted in the primaries, are political animals. They are politically involved, close to the candidates, and politics runs in their veins. But can the votes of 80,000 members be projected to over a million voters? It's not certain.
Even when Netanyahu brought us the Abraham Accords and defeated COVID through vaccines, they were sure that Likud supporters would show up to vote, but that didn't happen. This time, the mission will be especially hard.
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