BICOM

On Sunday evening, the left-wing Zionist political party Meretz selected its top ten Knesset candidates in advance of January’s election.

Seventeen candidates stood for election by the party’s 1,000-strong convention in Tel Aviv. Meretz leader Zahava Galon was guaranteed top spot on the list and she was followed by current MKs Ilan Gilon and the Knesset’s only openly gay member Nitzan Horowitz. Fourth spot on the list went to Michal Rozin, the director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel. However, the surprise of the evening was the fifth-placed candidate, Arab-Israeli accountant Issawi Frej from Kfar Kassem who was elected despite Arabs comprising just six per-cent of the Meretz convention.

Frej, who argued that Arab voters should no longer pursue representation only through Arab parties, campaigned under the slogan, “A real left needs an Arab candidate.” After the results had been announced he said, “I have no doubt that the statement our members made today – a statement of partnership and representation – will be seen in the support Meretz gets from the [Arab] community.”

Meanwhile, party leader Galon took to the stage and excitedly commented, “We’ve chosen a terrific team for the Knesset… ideological, moral, talented people. I’m so pleased and proud that we’re going together to the Knesset.”

Meretz currently has just three members of Knesset, but many commentators are predicting that the party could win five or six mandates in January. Meretz is positioning itself as the natural home for left-wing Israelis and is using advertising slogans such as “Our heart is on the Left” and “Left-wingers go home (to Meretz).”

The party was founded in 1992 as an alliance of three parties, Mapam which represented the socialist core of the kibbutz movement, Ratz an urban-based civil-rights party and the middle-class liberal Shinui. At the height of its popularity, Meretz won twelve seats in the 1992 election and was the second largest party in the government of Yitzhak Rabin.