Yesh Atid leader to rival Shelah: No one gives me an ultimatum.
By GIL HOFFMANMK Yair Lapid speaks during a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling on him to quit, at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on April 19, 2020(photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)
Opposition leader Yair Lapid on Monday agreed to challenger Ofer Shelah’s request for a Yesh Atid leadership race in 2021, but not an open primary this December, as Shelah had demanded.“There is nothing that interests the public less now than internal party politics,” Lapid told his faction. “And yet, our friend, Knesset member Ofer Shelah last week proposed holding open primaries in Yesh Atid and presented his view directly to the press.”Lapid said Yesh Atid started a process a few months ago to examine options for the democratization of the party, which he said is the natural next step of a major party that is the alternative to the government. He said he was working with Yesh Atid branch heads to enable the first party conference on internal elections, but it would only be held during 2021.“There will be an election,” Lapid said. “I welcome it, and it’s time. But we will do it without pressure. No one gives me an ultimatum. I won’t let the things that ruined parties like Labor or Kadima ruin Yesh Atid.“Yesh Atid has thousands of members who have been fighting for years. They have earned through their sweat and toil, by standing at junctions and bridges, the right to forge the identity and choose the leadership of the party.”As part of the process, he said, Yesh Atid considered various methods of holding internal elections, and one of the ways ruled out was open primaries.“Open primaries means vote bundlers, dirty deals and all the things that are not, and never will be, a part of our DNA,” Lapid said. “It is all the things that ruined other parties.”Shelah did not respond to Lapid during the meeting, whose closed-door portion ended up being about other issues.“Strong people are not afraid,” he tweeted after Lapid’s announcement.Shelah later posted on Facebook that he had not threatened Lapid; he only raised ideas for moving the party forward.“Instead of facing the challenge and helping create a proper alternative, Lapid is evading dealing with it,” Shelah said.
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