After 'Post' probe, group cancels double vote scheme

Settler organization had urged Habayit Hayehudi members to vote in Likud primaries even though it is illegal to be member of 2 parties.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Shevach Stern speaking at Migron rally 311 (photo credit: LAHAV HARKOV)
Shevach Stern speaking at Migron rally 311
(photo credit: LAHAV HARKOV)
The Nationalist Camp, an influential Likud pressure group, retracted its push for Habayit Hayehudi members to vote in the Likud primary late Saturday night, following a Jerusalem Post investigation that exposed the illegality of doing so.
In an email obtained by the Post, Natan Englesman, one of the Nationalist Camp’s leaders, wrote a “clarification of the previous email on voting in the primaries of two different parties.”
“After I learned it is illegal to vote in the primaries of two different parties, I take back the previous email I sent on the matter, and call for those who joined Habayit Hayehudi to not vote in the Likud primary,” Englesman wrote hours before the Likud primary ballots opened, shortly after the Post published the contents of his previous email.
Earlier Saturday, Englesman asked new Habayit Hayehudi members who had formerly been members of Likud to attempt to vote in Sunday’s primary.
Click for full JPost coverage
Click for full JPost coverage
The email also contained recommendations of Likud candidates they think would best represent the interests of those who support and live in Judea and Samaria, such as Manhigut Yehudit leader Moshe Feiglin, Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin, MKs Tzipi Hotovely, Yariv Levin, Haim Katz and others.
It is illegal to be a member of more than one party and, according to the law, it is the individual’s responsibility to leave a party when he or she joins another.
The Justice Ministry compared the lists of several political parties on October 28, and found that 2,800 people were members of both Likud and Habayit Hayehudi, according to a report by political blogger and former Ma’ariv reporter Tal Schneider. Another 500 were found to be members of both Likud and Labor.