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Netanyahu Elected Chairman of the Likud
Finally, the Likud has a new leader who will stand at the head of its list in the coming elections. After winning a comfortable 44% of the party vote, former PM Benjamin Netanyahu easily defeated his primary opponent, foreign minister Sylvan Shalom, who only received 33%. Surprisingly, the far-right extremist candidate Moshe Feiglin managed to garner 15% of the vote.
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The main task of the new Likud leader will be to rebuild, in only a matter of months, a party which-- after the departure of Ariel Sharon, finance minister Ehoud Ulmert, and chairman of the party convention Tsahi Hanegbi-- is in complete disarray. Due to a combination of three important factors, this task is far from easy.
First, there is always the risk of further desertions to the Kadima party, especially among the supporters of Sylvan Shalom, who are closer to Ariel Sharon?s policy than to Netanyahu/Feiglin?s extremism. Moreover: Netanyahu will ask the Likud members who are still in and around Sharon?s government to resign, and there is good reason to doubt that these members will be happy to disconnect themselves from their positions of power and all their perks.
Second, Netanyahu is extremely unpopular among the people ? especially the poor who used to represent the Likud?s electoral reservoir. In an election campaign where social issues could prove central, both Sharon and Labor leader Amir Peretz will focus their criticism on Netanyahu?s ultra-liberal policies and the calamitous social damages they have produced.
Third, under the political leadership of Netanyahu, the Likud is sandwiched between the far-right parties and the ?center? option of Kadima. It seems that Netanyahu will try to present a moderate party line, but even if he manages to maintain such a fa?ade, he will still be no match for Sharon, who already embodies this ?moderate? image.
In the face of all these challenges, Netanyahu will need a lot of self-confidence and the active support of his former opponents to put the Likud back on track and reverse the process of marginalization that, as public opinion indicates, continues to plague the party. Indeed, poles predict that the Likud will take only 13 seats, which is one third of the votes garnered by the party in the last elections.
After the announcement of his victory, many journalists asked Netanyahu, in quite the ironic tone: ?how does it feel to be the leader of a party that was in power for almost three decades and now represents only a negligible opposition?? However, even if we share these journalist sentiments about Israel?s most arrogant and cynical politician, we must not mix wishes with reality, or election?s results with public opinion polls. The elections are still far away ? three full months ? and despite the significant problems with which the Likud is confronted, one should not forget that for tens of thousands of Israelis, especially those Israelis coming from Arab-Jewish backgrounds, ?Likud? is more than a ?motag? (trademark) political approach, social program, or type of leadership. ?Likud? is an identity: the identity of many of those who have been excluded, humiliated, and discriminate against by three decades of Labor rule.
On the night of the elections, our journalists may be, once again, surprised to see that the Likud has not vanished from the political map. Despite its catastrophic economic policy and its ultra-rightist position on the Israeli-Arab issue, which makes Ariel Sharon look as Mahatma Gandhi, it still has a great amount of support among the Israeli people.
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