Netivot Mayor Yechiel Zohar said on Sunday that Likud should not abolish its primaries, arguing in an interview with Walla that the system is essential to the party’s identity. He said primaries are not “a technical tool” but “the beating heart of the Likud movement,” and the only mechanism that ensures proper representation for districts, women, peripheral areas, and whole communities that see Likud as their political home.
Zohar warned that replacing primaries with closed-door list making would damage the party’s activists. “Abolishing the primaries will weaken the power of grassroots activists and severely hurt their motivation on election day,” he said. He added that he supports limited reserved spots on the list, but only as a supplement, not a substitute.
According to Zohar, any reserved places approved by Likud institutions should be used only for targeted adjustments intended to balance and diversify the slate. “But this tool must come as an addition to the choice of the field and not as a replacement,” he said, adding that Likud’s strength lies in “the power of the people’s choice, not in alien lists born in closed rooms.”
The dispute follows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported proposal, together with his advisers, to eliminate the primaries and instead appoint a committee to draw up the list. The idea has drawn pushback from many Likud members. A senior Likud figure in the south said, “Likud is not a party of one man. We want primaries, this is a party that existed before the prime minister and will exist after him.” He added that Netanyahu himself brought primaries into Likud and long boasted that it was Israel’s largest democratic party. He also argued that Netanyahu’s reserved slots over the years “did not really succeed,” and warned that ending primaries would mean “the end of the party” and turn it into “another Labor Party.”
