BICOM

Likud members will vote today to decide the party’s Knesset list for the 9 April elections.

Polling stations have opened across the country in which about 120,000 members will be eligible to vote. They will choose from 142 candidates who are competing for spots on the national list. The candidates include Yoav Gallant, who defected from Kulanu, Nir Barkat, the former Mayor of Jerusalem, and former Minister Gidon Saar, who is returning to politics.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told prominent Likud activists last night that his only fear is if Gidon Saar were to be elected first place. In phone calls to activists, Netanyahu said that he had no problem with Saar finishing in second place or lower. Netanyahu explained that his concern was that Saar would take steps against him if he came first in the party primary.

Speaking to Channel 12 News last night, Saar said: “Prime Minister Netanyahu has twice manufactured and spread a false libel. One time at his birthday party, and a second time at the party inaugurating the Likud’s studio. That was manufactured in order to attack me on the eve of the primary. It began with a fabricated story about a conspiracy with the president, moved to an allegation as if I talked about this with figures in the coalition, and now there’s an allegation that I spoke to figures in the Likud—and everything is anonymous.”

Jewish Home MK Motti Yogev was elected second place on their party’s list after its new chairman, Rafi Peretz. The third spot is reserved for a woman. Eli Ben Dahan came in fourth. Peretz criticised the recently departed Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, without mentioning them by name, and said that there were some people for whom Jewish Home “was not glittery enough, they pass through for a little while, they use and then discard”.

The Central Elections Committee has asked Facebook to bring forward its plans to launch tools and restrictions in Israel aimed at preventing foreign interference and make political advertisements more transparent.