Former MK Nissan Slomiansky took second place on the Habayit Hayehudi candidates
list for the 19th Knesset, the party’s election committee announced on
Wednesday.
One week after Naftali Bennett was elected party leader,
Slomiansky, a supporter of Bennett’s rival MK Zevulun Orlev, won the second
place on the list.
Bennett allies Ayelet Shaked, MK Uri Orbach, Beersheba
Deputy Mayor Avi Wertzman and Mateh Binyamin Regional Council deputy chairman
Moti Yogev followed.
The party is expected to run for the next Knesset
with the National Union, so the candidates will ultimately be placed lower on
the joint list.
After announcing the list, Central Election Committee
Chairman Rabbi Daniel Tropper cited the drastic changes the party underwent, and
expressed hope it would be transformed from a marginal party to a dominant
one.
“Something new is beginning,” Bennet said, quoting his campaign
slogan. “Religious Zionism, which for many years was unimportant in the
political field, is rising like a phoenix and expanding into places we never
imagined we would reach.
Habayit Hayehudi’s goal, he explained, is to be
the senior party in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s next
coalition.
The new Habayit Hayehudi leader pointed out that the party
recruited nearly 54,000 members in recent months, calling it “lively and
values-driven.”
Bennett called the party’s new list the best possible and
very varied.
“We will bring back the Jewish soul to the State of
Israel. We will be the home to all those who love the Land of Israel and
are proud of the Torah of Israel,” he added.
Also Wednesday, Yoni
Shetbon, who was elected to seventh place in the party, petitioned the Habayit
Hayehudi court, asking it to enforce a central election committee decision to
save the fifth spot for a candidate under 40. Shetbon is 33 years old.
MK
Uri Ariel, expected to lead the National Union in the 19th Knesset, said the
“knitted-kippa revolution” began on Wednesday.
“I congratulate those who
were elected in the Habayit Hayehudi party. Now we are geared toward unifying
the ranks and returning the national-religious camp to its historic influential
position on the political map,” Ariel said.
Current National Union
chairman MK Ya’acov Katz called the Habayit Hayehudi list “excellent” saying it
will “fit in perfectly with National Union’s excellent list.”
Katz
predicted the National Union-Habayit Hayehudi list would get more than 12 seats
in the next Knesset, and raise the status of Torah and the Land of
Israel.
“God willing, our joint list will be the largest in the
coalition,” he said.
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