No one has ever confused Likud primaries with genteel affairs. They are loud, messy, and extremely competitive.
But even by Likud’s rough-and-tumble standards, the run-up to Monday’s primary looks like an extraordinary mess.
There are the battles over the district slots, the party court rulings, the attempts to protect veteran ministers, the eight places Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was given to fill with candidates of his choosing, and the additional guaranteed positions he demanded – and received – for Defense Minister Israel Katz, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, and Likud Central Committee chairman Haim Katz.
Taken together, Netanyahu will control 11 of the top 29 positions on the party’s next Knesset slate. That is enormous influence, especially since the Likud, which currently holds 32 seats, is polling at an average of only 23-24.
It also means that a significant number of today’s Likud MKs will not be parliamentarians tomorrow. That has left them embittered and battling for their political lives in what is essentially a zero-sum game.
And that type of bitterness tends to spill into the public arena – as it has.
Then came Netanyahu’s first personal selection: Oren Dobronsky, a hi-tech entrepreneur with years of Silicon Valley experience who was supposed to add economic and technological heft to the list.
Netanyahu apparently meant to undercut Nir Barkat, once a possible successor
He was also, if reports are to be believed, meant to undercut Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat, himself a former hi-tech entrepreneur.
Why would Netanyahu want to undercut Barkat, once widely viewed as a possible successor? Because according to a Channel 12 report, Barkat and Yuli Edelstein – who has since left the Likud to form a new party with Gilad Erdan – were behind an unsuccessful attempt immediately after October 7 to replace Netanyahu.
According to the report, Barkat and Edelstein tried to secure the support of the 13 Likud MKs needed to replace Netanyahu through a constructive vote of no confidence. They were unable to agree on who would take his place, and Edelstein reportedly proposed becoming interim prime minister, followed by a Likud leadership primary in which he would not run.
The report said Haim Katz learned of the effort and warned Netanyahu, who moved to thwart it. Some believe Netanyahu is now protecting Katz while reportedly using the primary to settle scores with Barkat.
The scriptwriters of a political drama could hardly have come up with a better storyline.
All of this points to a larger problem facing the Likud: How does a party that prides itself on being democratic ensure that its primary produces a list able to appeal to those beyond its base?
Unlike most Israeli parties, Likud has long taken pride in allowing its members to choose its Knesset candidates. This is a significant part of its identity. The Likud likes to contrast its broad, grassroots membership with parties led by the likes of Avigdor Liberman, Yair Lapid, and Naftali Bennett, whose lists are determined by the leader or a small committee.
There is merit to that argument. Primaries give party members a voice. They force politicians to maintain contact with the grassroots.
There is also no small irony in Netanyahu’s effort to undercut the primary system. He entered the Knesset in 1988 by prevailing in Likud’s old Central Committee-based selection process, despite opposition from parts of the party establishment. Five years later, a party-wide leadership primary enabled him to defeat David Levy, Benny Begin, and Moshe Katsav and take control of the party.
The Likud’s internal democracy did not merely help Netanyahu; it was critical to his political rise.
But that was then. In recent years, the primary system has exposed a serious downside.
To succeed, candidates need name recognition across the country. Quiet legislative work, expertise in a particular field, or a record of effective committee work doesn’t exactly provide that. Television appearances do. So do provocative statements, attacks on political opponents, and inflammatory social-media posts.
The louder the candidate, the greater the likelihood that Likud members will know their name when they reach the primary ballot box.
That system has helped propel figures such as Tally Gotliv to prominence. Gotliv is constantly in the headlines. She attacks the courts, the Attorney-General’s Office, the media, her political opponents, and occasionally members of her own party. She knows how to appeal to a significant part of the Likud base.
And she is now among the fiercest critics of Netanyahu’s reserved slots. But Netanyahu’s dilemma is understandable.
He wants a party list that can attract voters beyond the Likud faithful. Internal polling reportedly indicates that some candidates popular with Likud members are far less attractive to moderate right-wing and swing voters whom the party will need in the election.
Netanyahu therefore wants the ability to balance the list: to add people from hi-tech, economics, security, and other fields who can broaden the party’s appeal and give it greater governing credibility.
That, at least, is the argument for the reserved slots, and it is not an unreasonable one.
The problem is the scale.
Giving Netanyahu eight handpicked positions, followed by guaranteed places for three senior ministers, means that he will effectively determine a third of the party’s realistic list. At a certain point, these types of “corrections” to the primary system begin to hollow out the primary itself.
Some veteran Likud figures look back nostalgically at the days when a much smaller party forum played the decisive role in choosing the list, including through the famous shvi’iyot, in which Central Committee members selected and ranked candidates in groups of seven.
Old system wasn’t perfect, but produced some high-stature Likud representatives
That system was far less democratic. It was also vulnerable to deals, pressure groups, and political horse-trading. It should not be romanticized.
Yet it did produce Likud representatives of considerable stature: Dan Meridor, Roni Milo, Benny Begin, Michael Eitan, Uzi Landau, and others who combined strong ideological views with independence, policy expertise, and respect for the institutions of the state.
Would figures of that type survive today’s Likud primary?
Meridor’s defense of the judiciary would have made him unelectable in a Likud primary today. Eitan’s years of serious parliamentary work would mean little against a candidate producing daily viral videos. And a thoughtful candidate such as Yuval Steinitz might find it difficult to generate the excitement needed to prevail in a contest driven by social media and combative television appearances.
That doesn’t mean the old system was necessarily superior. Nor does it mean Likud members are incapable of choosing serious candidates. It does mean that a large national primary creates incentives that favor confrontation, ideological purity, and name recognition over depth, experience, and independence.
Netanyahu is now trying to correct those distortions from above. But in doing so, he risks undermining the democratic character that distinguishes Likud from nearly every other Israeli party.
This is the balancing act at the center of Monday’s primary.
Leave the process entirely in the hands of the membership, and the result may be a list filled with candidates who fire up the base but repel many of the voters Likud needs to win the election.
Intervene too heavily, however, and the party’s much-vaunted internal democracy becomes largely cosmetic – a primary in which the leader has already determined more than a third of the realistic list.
There is no selection system guaranteed to produce top-tier politicians. A small committee can choose mediocrities and cronies just as easily as a primary can reward demagogues.
But Likud’s current predicament is acute: The party wants the democratic legitimacy of a mass primary and the broad electoral appeal of a carefully put-together list. The chaos surrounding the August 17 vote shows how difficult it is to have both.
