JERUSALEM: Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling rightwing Likud were slugging it out in a party primary on Sunday to choose the frontrunners for a January 22 parliamentary race.
The primary among the Likud’s 123,000 registered members was to select a list of parliamentary candidates which will be put to voters in the January general election.
Netanyahu’s position as party leader was already confirmed by Likud’s governing central committee in February.
Polling stations opened at 9am and were to close 13 hours later at 10pm with results due out by midnight (2200 GMT).
But a series of technical problems at many of the computerised polling stations were causing serious delays, raising the possibility that the vote could be extended by another day. “The election process taking place now is a farce,” said Education Minister Gideon Saar on his Facebook page. “It should be halted at once and held at another time soon.”
Netanyahu himself cast his ballot at the Givat Zeev settlement just north of Jerusalem, urging members to come and vote, a statement said.
Analysts are keen to see if the party tilts further to the right in response to public disaffection over a truce deal which on Wednesday ended Israel’s eight-day Operation Pillar of Defence against Gaza militants, halting plans for a major ground operation.
The ballot will also be a test of the strength of the far-right Jewish settler lobby, led by Moshe Feiglin, within the party.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Feiglin said that although Likud supporters in the south, which bore the brunt of the Gaza rocket fire, were dissatisfied with what they saw as a premature ceasefire they would remain loyal and not defect to far-right parties.
“Despite the justified hard feelings of the people in the south, they will come and vote today and also on January 22,” he said, adding that Likud also needed to walk a clearer path.
“Likud needs to return to the straight path, to end confusion about its values, to say: This is our land,” he said. Last week, the settler lobby published a front-page advert in the Jerusalem Post ranking Likud candidates on the basis of their opposition to a Palestinian state and how many settlements they had helped build.
AFP
