Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Likud ministers on Sunday that he does
not believe that party activist Moshe Feiglin will impact their future, or that
of the party.
According to preliminary results of the election, Netanyahu
won 48,490 votes (76.79 percent) in last Tuesday’s Likud leadership race,
compared to Feiglin’s 14,660 (23.21%).
Despite receiving a smaller
percentage of the vote than he did in the last race in 2007, Feiglin declared
victory and vowed to use his power in the party to make the next Likud list more
right wing.
“You should not be afraid of Feiglin,” Netanyahu told the
ministers in the closed-door meeting according to one minister.
“There
are many forces that will have an impact on the make-up of our list and I will
be the primary force.” According to another minister, Netanyahu also said he
would not consider the ranking of the Likud’s next Knesset list when he chooses
his ministers from the party in his next government.
Netanyahu is
expected to oppose proposals in the Likud central committee aiming to restore
the committee’s right to select the party’s MKs. When Netanyahu became Likud
leader following the formation of Kadima in 2005, he passed a proposal taking
away the power to select MKs from the central committee and giving it to the
party members as a whole.
Referring to some of Feiglin’s more extreme
views, Netanyahu said “The Likud will not become messianic. We will
remain a liberal, democratic party.”