.
A reader wrote this in a letter to the editor in the Jerusalem Post;
The results of the Feiglin-Netanyahu contest are not an honest reflection of how all Likud members feel. You have to be a member for 14 months before you are allowed to vote, which stopped many of us from expressing who we would like to lead the Likud. The numbers could have been very different if there had been true democracy, and l feel very cheated.
It’s difficult to ascertain, from this brief blurb, which candidate the writer would support. But it is important that the reasons and background behind why there is a 16 month waiting period before voting eligibility need to be explained. This explanation is particularly necessary in light of re-elected Likud leader Netanyahu’s blatant attempt to strong-arm changes in Likud party membership and voting rules in attempt to squash Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit. Also, the impact of any rule changes regarding Manhigut Yehudit needs to be understand.
Mazal Mualem of Haaretz writes of Bibi’s efforts to “marginalize” Feiglin;
Unless the Likud’s disciplinary tribunal squelches a Feiglin candidacy for advocating racist policies and calling on soldiers to refuse orders, he and his supporters will be able to run for Knesset on the Likud list.
Besides increasing membership, Netanyahu wants to abolish the waiting period for new members so they can take part in electing Likud’s slate for the next Knesset elections. New members must wait 18 months before they can vote and be elected, and currently there are 95,000 eligible voters.
Netanyahu associates say that with 150,000 voters, Feiglin’s 9,000 votes would be insignificant. In Tuesday’s vote, he received 23 percent of the vote, compared with 13 percent in the primary held in late 2005. A lower voter turnout could have helped Feiglin win more than 30 percent, which would have been a victory of sorts. Feiglin failed to increase his support substantially in major cities, secular communities, or locales outside Judea and Samaria.
Netanyahu repeated his message yesterday that Feiglin is out of place in the Likud movement. He will underscore that point at every opportunity, this being a battle over image.
In essence, what Mualem writes is what’s known throughout Manhigut Yehudit and at the leadership levels of Likud; namely that Manhigut Yehudit voters are motivated voters who can be counted upon to vote for their candidate at 90% plus levels, whereas Likud voters, on the whole, have proven to be largely unmotivated in the last 3 party primaries and have voted at a rate of between 34% to 42%.
To illustrate, by reducing the the Likud membership and numbers of votes cast in Tuesday’s primary by the number of Feiglin votes, one realizes the following;
- Estimated Likud membership less; estimated MY voters 86,000
- Estimated Likud vote in Tuesday’s primary less; MY votes 27,000
- Estimated % of Likud Non-Manhigut Yehudit ballots cast
in primary to Total Likud membership less; MY members; 31.4%
So, if we assume that Bibi goes out and signs up another 50,000 Likud members, and if we assume that in the process, he adheres to Israel’s election laws totally and doesn’t try to circumvent the law, as Omri Sharon and his gangster buddies allegedly did in getting his dad, Arik Sharon elected as party leader, one can reasonably assume that in the next such primary, based on a voter turnout percentage roughly the same as Tuesday’s, that 60,000 ballots would be cast. And if we assume that of those 50,000 new Likud members, 10,000 of them would be Manhigut Yehudit voters, and that if the 16 month waiting period were removed, then Feiglin’s percentage in the next primary could turn out something like at least 31.7%.
The term “at least” is meant to indicate that not factored in, due to this author’s lack of information, are the numbers of people who joined Likud via Manhigut Yehudit and who would by motivated MY voters were it not for the 16 month waiting period before voting eligibility which disallowed them from voting in Tuesday’s primary. If that number is as little 3,000 voters, the adjusted percentage would then be 36.7%
The point here is, that no matter how you throw the dice, Moshe Feiglin’s support is anything but marginal and growing steadily, consistently by the day.
Finally, based on past track-records, is it fair to assume that Netanyahu and the other Old-Boy Likud wheeler-dealers are somewhat less than squeeky-clean?
Therefore, these excerpts from a January, 2003 piece for the Weekly Standard; No-Goodnik Likudniks, by Tom Rose are a Must-Read;
Sharon’s deputies, led by his 38-year-old son Omri, appear not to have let Israel’s strict campaign finance laws get in their way. They managed to add nearly 60,000 new members, or 13 percent of the total, to the Likud party’s rolls between March 2001 and November 28, 2002, when the party primary was held. As it happened, Netanyahu did indeed challenge Sharon for the leadership–and lost by a margin of 13 percentage points.
Unlike in the United States, where voting in primaries is usually open to any voter registered with the party, in Israel, voting in primaries is a privilege reserved for dues-paying party members. That Omri Sharon enlisted 60,000 new members was extraordinary enough. That they all managed to pay their $10 dues was downright amazing. Too amazing, as it turns out.
Omri Sharon allegedly recruited the services of a convicted felon and reputed underworld figure named Shlomi Oz to buy a security company owned by his own ex-girlfriend, which would “bid” for contracts to “provide protection” to Likud-associated businesses, the profits of which would pay the membership fees for the party’s 60,000 new members. The implication is that Omri Sharon hired Shlomi Oz to create a protection racket.
Also consider this; Joshua Brilliant piece for UPI which was published Dec. 31, 2002;
The scandal seems to have begun several months ago when the Likud’s ranks suddenly trebled to more than 300,000 members. Until then, Sharon’s main rival, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, seemed to command the most support.
According to the Ma’ariv newspaper, Sharon and his associates decided to change the Likud around, partly to ensure the political future of Omri Sharon.
“Omri teamed up with former criminals and suspicious types who recruited thousands of new members, almost at any cost,” Ma’ariv alleged Friday.
Some of the new party members were former South Lebanese Army soldiers, who are not Israeli citizens and thus not eligible to become party members. Thousands of people joined two parties or more. Interested parties paid the new recruits’ membership dues, several sources said.
The Likud members elected a central committee that then chose the list of Knesset candidates. It was done in a carnival atmosphere where candidates competed in serving pizzas, hot dogs, chewing gum, coffee, and in blaring music. There were reports that money exchanged hands.
The Israeli election system provides that each party presents a list of candidates, and the number of votes a party gets determines how many people on that list enter the Knesset. The first on the list is the first to get in.
The Likud list seemed odd. Outstanding members, including the Defense, Justice and Communications ministers, the mayor of Jerusalem, and the coalition chairman were far down on the list, while others, including a little-known waitress whose family is involved in casinos abroad, did surprisingly well.
There you have it. Bibi Netanyahu had a vested interest in seeing a 16 month voting eligibility requirement enacted as well as to have Likud party members vote for party leader and party slate for Knesset, in order to eliminate such gangster scams as apparently employed by Omri Sharon to get his father elected.
But now, when a squeeky-clean opponent who adheres to the letter of the law arises to debate, to contest for leadership of the Likud based on Likud founding ideology and on Jewish values and who poses a serious threat to the current leader, that leader seeks to have the laws changed to his benefit. And who is to say that Bibi won’t utilize the same or similar fraudulent, gangster tactics as apparently employed by Omri Sharon? And who is to say that a Prime Minister Netanyahu, in his 2nd term as prime minister, won’t proudly wear the same leftist Etrog as did Sharon and as does Ehud Olmert? MB