‘Provocation’: Sa’ar clashes with fellow New Hope MK in probe of comptroller vote

Sharren Haskel tells police that party whip Michel Buskila demanded members film votes, show them to Netanyahu; foreign minister and New Hope leader denies it

New Hope MK Sharren Haskel told police on Sunday that her own faction ordered its lawmakers to record themselves casting ballots for Michael Rabello, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the vote for state comptroller in June, and to show their votes to the premier.

In her testimony to investigators from the Lahav 433 major crimes unit, Haskel said that the instruction to record the votes came down from New Hope MK Michel Buskila, the party whip, a source familiar with the investigation was cited by Kan as saying.

Police are expected to collect testimony from other New Hope MKs who would have received the same instructions, the report said. In an interview with the broadcaster last week, New Hope MK and Minister Ze’ev Elkin denied receiving such instructions.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who chairs New Hope, rejected the claim in an affidavit submitted to the High Court of Justice.

Sa’ar, who was abroad at the time of the vote, wrote that Haskel’s claims are “not only baseless, they’re also irrelevant and are designed to generate a media provocation.”

He insisted there was no such demand by the ruling Likud party, and said that he too made clear to party members that they were not supposed to video themselves casting their ballots.

The comptroller election was marred by at least six coalition MKs recording their vote, which opposition parties and government watchdog groups have alleged was done on the instructions of senior Likud officials.

The High Court of Justice ruled that those MKs had violated the legal requirement that the vote be held by secret ballot, regardless of whether they were instructed to record their vote.

The court ruled that the Knesset must therefore hold a new election for the state comptroller position.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin called on the Knesset not to abide by the ruling, and no repeat election has been held. Rabello, however, has refused to take up the position in light of the High Court ruling, leaving it unfilled.

During the course of the High Court case, several Likud MKs filed affidavits to the court declaring that they had not been instructed to vote for Rabello, Netanyahu’s long-time lawyer and adviser.

But two weeks ago, Haskel testified in her own affidavit in the framework of a different legal process in the High Court that members of New Hope had been instructed to video themselves voting for Rabello, and that the MKs were also instructed to show the video of their vote to Netanyahu.

In that affidavit, she did not specify where the order had come from.

Following the submission of Haskel’s affidavit, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara instructed police to probe the conflicting affidavits and explore the possibility of launching a criminal investigation for perjury into whomever is found to be lying.

Haskel entered the Knesset as part of New Hope, but opposed its March 2025 merger with Likud and has refused to run on the joint list.

Last month, she resigned from her role of deputy foreign minister and left the government, after the Knesset passed a law banning the arrest and prosecution of Haredi draft dodgers.

In a widely circulated handwritten resignation note, Haskel accused Sa’ar of betrayal, writing: “You lied to me. You lied to the nation of Israel.”

Haskel has since launched a new political party, “Israel First.”

She petitioned the High Court of Justice to order New Hope and Likud to formally complete their merger, arguing that they deliberately left the process unfinished to prevent her from splitting off as a one-member faction and taking with her the state funding attached to her Knesset seat.

Jeremy Sharon and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.