Last update - 00:00 13/08/2007
Netanyahu struggles to bring Likud voters to polls for primaries
By Mazal Mualem
Two days before what has so far been a soporific Likud leadership primary, party chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu was fighting to get voters to the polls.
At a closing rally for his local campaign chiefs in Ramle Sunday, Netanyahu asked each one to give him an exact estimate of how many voters they could muster. He is seeking to combat the complacence of Likud members who are sure of his victory, along with the fact that some 15,000 Likud members are said to be out of the country or on vacation somewhere in Israel.
Netanyahu's people said Sunday that if they manage to get a 30-percent voter turnout under these circumstances, they would consider it an achievement.
Netanyahu's main opponent, Moshe Feiglin, also continued to rally his supporters Sunday. Feiglin, chairman of the party's Jewish Leadership faction, has about 9,000 followers, or some 10 percent of all Likud members, and most can be counted on to come to the polls. Netanyahu's goal is to try to reduce Feiglin's share of the vote, though Feiglin would still be able to boast of coming in second in the primary.
In his blog, Netanyahu repeated his message to the rally: If mainstream Likud members do not turn out at the ballot box, "marginal candidates who do not represent our way will get more votes. It will then be claimed by our opponents that the Likud is an extremist movement unworthy of leading the country."
But sources involved in the Netanyahu campaign said that even if Feiglin wins 30 percent of the vote, the initial criticism will die down.
The incumbent called the unusual mid-summer primary in an effort to end his conflict with his main rival, MK Silvan Shalom. But Shalom then decided to drop out and criticized the legitimacy of the ballot, leaving Netanyahu in the ring with Feiglin and another candidate, Danny Danon.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert won first place on Kadima's Knesset list in a mock primary held over the weekend on Kadima's unofficial web site, despite his ongoing failure to rally in public opinion polls. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who ranks high in opinion polls, came in only in sixth place.
Security Minister Avi Dichter came in second in the mock poll, Roni Bar-On came in third and Shaul Mofaz placed fourth.
The mock election generated a storm in Kadima over the past two weeks, with the party's ministers and MKs working hard to bring more members to the electronic voting booth and making deals for their candidate. In the end, about 4,000 party members voted.