Likud approves reserved spots for Israel Katz and Sa’ar, freezes vote on Haim Katz

Likud MK Tally Gotliv slams ‘disgraceful move that mocks Likud voters,’ says defense minister is ‘deeply afraid of the primary results and rightly so’

The Likud secretariat on Tuesday afternoon approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision, announced overnight, to grant guaranteed spots on the party’s electoral list to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Defense Minister Israel Katz ahead of the primary later this month.

Katz and Sa’ar will be given reserved placements separate from the eight slots set aside for candidates of Netanyahu’s choosing, the Likud announcement said, meaning that in total, 10 of the first 29 spaces on the ruling party’s slate will go to hand-picked candidates rather than to those elected by the party’s roughly 140,000 members at the upcoming August 17 primary.

However, following a ruling by an internal Likud court, the secretariat froze a vote on giving another guaranteed spot to Likud Central Committee chair Haim Katz, whom the tribunal noted is running in the party’s primary.

Guaranteeing Haim Katz’s spot now “might raise a claim of reliance on Katz’s part that, naturally, would cause him to stop his election campaign if the approval for the reservation becomes final,” despite what appear to be potentially legitimate arguments against the move, the party court wrote in its decision.

The court failed to rule on the petitioners’ demand that the spots given to Sa’ar and Israel Katz should come at the expense of the prime minister’s reservation quota while justifying giving the foreign minister a reserved spot because “this is not actually a reservation, but rather a joint run of two factions within one list of candidates” — a reference to the merger between Sa’ar’s New Hope party and Netanyahu’s Likud.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, Netanyahu on Tuesday also approved shortening the requirements for party membership to allow Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Sa’ar’s New Hope party, which is merging with Likud, and former Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen to run in the primary.

In a post on X, firebrand Likud MK Tally Gotliv slammed the decision to give the defense minister a reserved spot as “a disgraceful move that mocks Likud voters.”

Israel Katz, she declared, is “deeply afraid of the primary results and rightly so.”

Israel Katz, who came in at number 11 in the last Likud primary in 2022, told the Ynet news site that year that he opposed the existence of guaranteed spots on the party list.

The premier’s push for reserved slots was based on concerns that the primary could elevate candidates who are highly popular among the Likud base — including Gotliv and ministers Shlomo Karhi and May Golan — but who internal party polling suggests are less appealing to moderate right-wing and swing voters whose support could prove decisive in the upcoming national election.

The announcement of Sa’ar, Israel Katz and Haim Katz’s reserved spots came less than a day after the Tel Aviv District Court rejected a petition backed by Netanyahu to strike down a ruling by the party’s internal tribunal that canceled a Likud Central Committee vote, which would have allowed sitting and former Knesset members, ministers and deputy ministers to compete for slots reserved for regional districts in the upcoming primaries.

For decades, Likud’s reserved spots for districts were only available for new MKs, acting as a diversifying tool that gives new figures a chance to make it into the Knesset. Netanyahu heavily campaigned for the Likud Central Committee to approve a change that would allow current and former lawmakers, ministers, and deputy ministers to vie for those spots. Public opinion polls have consistently shown Likud getting around 22-24 seats in the October 27 election, significantly down from its current 32.

Incumbent lawmakers and ministers would be expected to compete for a limited number of available and realistic spots, leaving many out.

Last week, a party court struck down Netanyahu’s bid to allow the party to cancel its primary in the event of a “wartime situation” and instead select candidates through an appointed committee controlled by the premier.

In its ruling, the court said there was “no room to open even the slightest door to canceling the primary,” which is currently set for August 17, arguing that Likud “is not a one-man party and will lose its character if it becomes one.”

Recent Hebrew media reports said that some Likud lawmakers were concerned that Netanyahu was seeking to avoid holding primaries in order to give him absolute control over the slate, a move that could see some backbenchers pushed so far down they would not realistically return to the Knesset.

Speaking with Radio 103FM last Wednesday morning, Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem insisted that “this is a party that does not belong to any single person, including the prime minister. Likud is a popular movement that existed before the prime minister and will exist after him and after me. Likud needs to understand this.”