Labor aims to prevent recount following primary vote

There will be 36 candidates seeking slots on the Labor list in the primary.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Isaac Herzog‏ (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Isaac Herzog‏
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog visited his party’s election committee Sunday and urged the judge who will run Tuesday’s primary, Ya’acov Shimoni, to ensure that mistakes that plagued the Likud’s primary two weeks ago would not be repeated.
Irregularities have been found in the Likud’s voting that has resulted in a recount in several polling stations.
MK Tzipi Hotovely and former MKs Avi Dichter and Michael Ratzon have appealed the results.
“We have the cleanest party,” Herzog promised. “We have MKs and candidates who have fought against corruption and who work all the time under full transparency.”
Herzog said he decided against going to the French rally on Sunday, because he thought it would be seen as a political decision. Speaking to Labor activists in Hadid, Herzog said it was right of Netanyahu to go Paris but not to hesitate and change his mind about it.
Labor candidates at the event denied reports of a political deal aimed at blocking former party head Shelly Yacimovich from winning a top slot.
The reports said MKs Eitan Cabel, Erel Margalit, Merav Michaeli, and Ma’ale Gilboa Regional Council chairman Danny Atar were part of the deal. Both Michaeli and Atar said they intend to vote for Yacimovich.
There will be 36 candidates seeking slots on the Labor list in the primary.
Labor’s 48,904 members will be eligible to vote from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 400 polling stations in 76 locations around the country. Results will be revealed the following morning.
A group calling itself the Mishmar Hevrati (Socioeconomic Guard) released a study Sunday night on the contributions of Labor MKs to socioeconomic legislation.
The study found that Cabel was the most effective MK on such issues, followed by Moshe Mizrachi and Nachman Shai. It found that surprisingly, Stav Shaffir, Yacimovich, and Margalit were less effective, in part because they missed key socioeconomic votes.
Attorney Revital Swid, who is running in the primary, said Sunday that if elected, she would focus on socioeconomic issues in the next Knesset.
Swid, 47, said the Knesset focuses too much on security issues.
A self-described liberal Orthodox Jew, she sent her children to religious schools and her husband wears a kippa. Swid is the only Orthodox candidate running in the primary.
The only kippa wearer running is the head of the Israeli Reform Movement, Rabbi Gilad Kariv.
“I think everyone should live how they want to live,” she said. “It is important to ensure that religious people will feel comfortable in the Labor Party.”