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Ayelet Shaked has taken first place in Jewish Home’s internal election to determine its list of Knesset candidates. As a secular woman, Shaked’s triumph will boost Jewish Home’s drive to present a broad-based party beyond its traditional religious Zionist base.

57 per cent of Jewish Home’s 77,000 members took part in yesterday’s primaries. Party leader, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said after having voted, “something big is happening.” He explained that, “Two years ago we were a small party with three [Knesset] members at the margins of Israeli politics,” and today Jewish Home is “the core movement in the State of Israel.” Jewish Home is the successor to the right-wing National Religious Party, which historically operated as a mid-sized political force. Under Bennett’s leadership, the party has experienced a renaissance. Current polls indicate that Jewish Home could increase its current share of 12 Knesset seats to as many as 15 or 16, becoming the third largest faction.

Having garnered the most votes yesterday, Shaked secured the third slot on the party’s list. Bennett will head the list, followed by Housing Minister Uri Ariel, whose Tekuma faction, considered on the religious right of the party, also has the ninth, fourteenth and eighteenth slots reserved for its candidates, who were selected last week.

Shaked is followed in fourth, fifth and sixth places respectively by Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Eli Ben Dahan, Knesset Finance Committee chief Nissan Slomiansky and MK Uri Orbach. Current MKs Uri Orbach, Shuli Mualem, Motti Yogev and Avi Wurtzman also secured realistically electable slots on the list. Journalist Yanon Migal was personally selected by Bennett in seventh slot. However, Dani Dayan, the former-head of the Yesha Council of settlements who recently left Likud for Jewish Home, polled in a disappointing twentieth place on the list giving him little chance of election.