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Netanyahu forced to shelve plan to reserve top 20 Knesset slots By Mazal Mualem Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu will apparently have to shelve a plan to reserve nine slots on the party's Knesset list for outsiders, including former minister Dan Meridor and former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon. Netanyahu's plan aroused a tempest among faction members and the party's central committee. Netanyahu had wanted to reserve the first 20 places on the party list for 11 current MKs and another nine personalities. These 20 people would have been ranked by the party's registered voters. Advertisement Netanyahu wanted to reserve seats for Meridor, Yaalon, former police commissioner Assaf Hefetz, Uzi Dayan, and Yair Shamir, the son of prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and the grandson of Revisionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Netanyahu had hoped these candidates would make Likud more attractive to voters and bolster the party's emphasis on security issues. Netanyahu had also hoped to block the "Feiglins" (an extreme right-wing group within Likud) from the top of the party slate, to decrease their chances of making the Knesset. Last week Netanyahu presented his plan to several Likud MKs individually, and realized it would be hard to get the faction to agree on it. Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his supporters began receiving harsh reactions from central committee members who were considering running for a slot on the slate. For the sitting MKs, most of whom would easily make the slate in a party primary, this could damage their future list ranking, affecting the jobs they would receive in a Likud government. Senior Likud officials called Netanyahu's initiative an anti-democratic move that damages members' right to be elected, and would be in practice a one-person party committee. They said Netanyahu, who boasted before the last elections that he had taken the vote on the party list from central committee members and transferred it to all the registered voters, is undermining his own achievement. In the wake of the opposition, Netanyahu and his associates realized it would be difficult to get the central committee to approve the initiative. This would require changing the party constitution, which necessitates a two-thirds majority of committee members in a secret ballot vote. However, Netanyahu's office said a decision has yet to be made on the issue. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Sarkozy in Syria Visit will put the onus on Damascus to cooperate further on Lebanon. Shalit talks frozen Hamas' senior leader in Gaza blames Israel for breakdown of negotiations.

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