Meretz, new leftist group wrangle over list's makeup

As Meretz prepares for its Sunday primary, the steering committee of the party's new leftward alignment will be meeting to discuss the composition of its candidates' list. Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer heads the committee, which is expected to meet tomorrow with Meretz officials to begin working out the details of a possible combined slate in the general election.

The negotiations over the precise mechanism by which candidates from the new movement will be integrated into the Meretz slate will wait until after the Meretz primary.

The new grouping's list has not been made public, but some of the names of those who have joined the new alignment are known. These include Yossi Kucik, Gilad Sher, Merav Michaeli, Uzi Baram and Nir Baram. Some of the figures who announced they were joining the new grouping a few weeks ago also said, though, that they did not intent to run for Knesset.

The Meretz party council has yet to approve the merger of the new movement with Meretz. The issue will be on the agenda of the party conference later this month.

Within Meretz, some argued recently that the aforementioned names will not attract voters, and since they are not "stars" there is no reason to put them near the top of the joint slate, as members of the new movement want. Some party insiders suggest Meretz should stick with the list that members vote in on Sunday.

One reason some are reluctant to support the merger is the demand by members of the new movement to replace the Meretz name with a new one.

Meanwhile, negotiations between Meretz and members of a new environmentalist movement looking to join broke down yesterday.