Today’s election update:
After last night’s press conference at which Shas leader Arye Deri was supported by founder R. Ovadia’s daughter, Adina bar-Shalom, today several recordings surfaced of Mrs bar-Shalom criticising Deri’s leadership of Shas.
Eli Yishai, the former Shas leader who left the party yesterday, held a press conference tonight to discuss his own new party. Well, he tried to – but it was disrupted by Shas people calling him a traitor, grabbing the picture of R Ovadia and forcing Yishai to flee into a side-room, protected by hotel security, for his own safety. So that went well. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting to see if Uri Ariel will join Yishai to form a new party or will stick with Jewish Home.
More trouble for Benjamin Netanyahu, as the Likud ‘court’ ruled that he’d actually lose last week’s vote on whether to make the party Primary earlier. He’s said he will appeal this ruling tomorrow, and it might end up at the Supreme Court. All this while he spent all day in Rome meeting John Kerry.
The far-right is planning another comeback, with Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel resurrecting the Otzma L’Yisrael faction. It will probably struggle to make the new 4% election threshold, though.
Moshe Kahlon and Yair Lapid met today in a supposed-to-be-secret meeting. Rumours say it was discussing ‘uniting the centre’, though this is not thought to be a full merged list and more of a cooperation agreement.
Labour MK Avishai Braverman announced that he wasn’t planning to stand for the next Knesset.