Five months after he was booed at a May 6 Likud convention, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu decided not to attend his party’s convention at the Tel Aviv
Fairgrounds Wednesday night.
The booing Netanyahu received from
extremists in the party for his initiative to elect himself president of that
convention was seen as one of several reasons that the prime minister ended up
signing a coalition agreement with Kadima the following
night.
Wednesday’s convention will approve a series of procedural
decisions about how to elect the Likud’s candidates for the next Knesset and
provide an opportunity for Likud candidates to mingle with key central committee
members.
The Likud’s law committee decided Tuesday night to maintain
reserved slots for women, immigrants, a non-Jew and a young candidate.
In
an effort to open slots on the list for current MKs, the party decided to enable
current MKs to win two realistic slots that were previously limited to
candidates who had never served in the Knesset.
The convention is
expected to decide to set November 25 as the date for the Likud
primary.
It will be the last convention presided over by retiring Likud
central committee chairman Moshe Kahlon, who is expected to be the star of the
event.
Likud Knesset candidate Tzahi Hanegbi – the last central committee
chairman before Kahlon – said he urged the present chairman not to leave
politics. He also offered to mediate if a political dispute was the reason for
his departure.
“It weakens Likud to see such a popular minister leave,”
Hanegbi said. “In my 30 years in politics, I don’t remember a minister’s
departure causing people such personal distress. People told me they felt
terrible to see him go. It says something about him.”