New bill submitted would make primary votes count

Kisch dares the New Likudniks to prove their loyalty to the party.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Yoav Kisch (photo credit: WIKIMEDIA)
Yoav Kisch
(photo credit: WIKIMEDIA)
Anyone who votes in party primaries before a general election automatically would be counted as voting for that party in a general election, according to a bill submitted Monday by Likud MK Yoav Kisch.
Kisch’s bill is intended to target the so-called “New Likudniks,” a group of centrists who want the party to become less extreme and return to the values they say existed when Likud was led by Menachem Begin and are no longer prevalent in the party.
“Every democratic party has a right to defend itself and its ideology,” Kisch said.
“The bill is intended to prevent Trojan horses in parties and stop illegitimate hostile takeovers using membership drives.”
Kisch dared the New Likudniks to prove their loyalty to the party.
“They claim they are Likudniks?” he said.
“Let’s see how many of them are ready to vote in the primaries when they know it will automatically count them as voting for Likud.”
Had such a bill passed in the United States, anyone who voted in the Republican presidential primaries would have been counted automatically as having voted for Donald Trump for president. Kisch, however, rejected the comparison, saying the electoral systems are completely different in the US where, in many state primaries, anyone can vote, but in Israel only members vote.
Likud activist Elidor Cohen submitted a petition to an internal Likud court on Monday asking that the leaders of the New Likudniks be expelled.
Cohen also published a list of 15 ministers and MKs who have come out against the group, and called upon more ministers and MKs to boycott the group.
“We condemn MKs and ministers who have met with members of the group,” Cohen said. “There has been an unacceptable phenomenon of leftists who decided to join the party in order to elect MKs whose agenda do not fit the party’s values and then won’t even vote for the party in the ballot box. This is undemocratic and harms the party.”