Yesh Atid, the country’s largest opposition party strongly supportive of the protesters chanting “de-mo-crat-ia” (democracy) at the weekly anti-government and judicial reform protests, announced Monday plans to hold a national convention in December to elect its party leader.
This type of announcement, a party holding leadership elections, should really not be that big a deal. Yet in this case it is a big deal because it marks the first time in the party’s 11-year history that elections will be held for its leader.
Elections were planned for last year’s party convention, but nobody opted to run against Yair Lapid, the party’s founder, its head for the previous 11 years, and the man who pretty much controls who will be on Yesh Atid’s Knesset list, as well as who will fill the party’s top jobs.
The convention is expected to number some 750 members, the vast majority of them believed to be Lapid loyalists.
Democracy is not only about elections, but elections make an entity democratic
As the leaders of the anti-judicial overhaul movement have said on numerous occasions over the past few months, democracy is not only about elections. There are other important elements in a democracy, such as checks and balances and protecting minority rights.
And that is all true. Democracy is not only about holding elections. But holding elections is a big part of what makes an entity democratic, be it a country, labor union, or political party.
It is seemly, therefore, that a party that portrays itself as a defender of the country’s democracy is taking steps to become more democratic. Otherwise, its claims that the rival political party’s leader has dictatorial aspirations, even though that party has open elections, may ring somewhat hollow.
So it is a good look for Yesh Atid that there will be some election at the party convention. Unlike last year, this time someone has even stepped up to challenge Lapid: former head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Ram Ben Barak, who served as deputy Mossad head before entering politics in 2019.
The last time someone from within the party challenged Lapid’s leadership was Ofer Shelah in 2020. It didn’t end well for Shelah, who was once Lapid’s right-hand man.
“I demanded from Yair Lapid elections for the leadership of Yesh Atid, but he refused and continues to refuse,” Shelah said in December 2020, while announcing he was leaving the party as a result.
Ben Barak’s chances of defeating Lapid, who has an iron grip on the party, are close to nil, with some observers wondering aloud whether this is just a symbolic campaign to make the party look more democratic (though Ben Barak strenuously denies this).
Appearances do matter. As Lapid said on Monday, “We have made Yesh Atid a democratic party today because it is a necessary step in our maturation as a ruling party.”
Yesh Atid sees itself a ruling party - Israelis do not
And Yesh Atid definitely sees itself as a ruling party. The problem is that the polls are not mirroring that confidence.
In the last elections, with Lapid sitting in the prime minister’s office, Yesh Atid won the most seats in its history: 24, making it second only to the Likud, which won 32 seats.
The current polls, however, are not smiling on the party. The average from the last 10 major polls taken by the country’s television stations and newspapers since September 10 shows that Yesh Atid would secure just 17 seats if elections were held today. That is a massive 29.5% drop from its current strength in the Knesset, indicating that something the party is doing now is not clicking with the voters.
In contrast, these polls show that Benny Gantz’s National Unity party - another party without internal elections waving the democracy banner - would win just under 29 seats, a 138% increase over its current representation in the Knesset, while the Likud would drop from 32 seats to just over 27, a drop in its strength of more than 14%.
While Lapid has sanctioned elections for leadership, he has not agreed to any type of election - whether primary or otherwise - for selecting the Knesset list, something now firmly in his hands.
Why does Lapid oppose primaries for the party list?
In a radio 103fm interview earlier this week, Lapid said that while he believes there should be primaries for his job, he opposes primaries for the party’s list. “If you want to know why, just take a look at the Likud’s list,” he said.
He told party members on Monday that “primaries destroyed the Likud and finished off Labor, and I see no reason to import their mistakes.”
Lapid’s argument over the years against primaries has not only centered around what they wrought for Likud and Labor but also what they did to his father Tommy Lapid’s Shinui party.
Shinui was a secular-centrist political party reconstituted by Lapid senior in the late 1990s and which surprised everyone in the 2003 elections by winning 15 seats and becoming the third largest party in the Knesset and a key component of Ariel Sharon’s ruling coalition.
Internal division, however, dogged the party, and Yair Lapid has argued that the party’s decline was due in part to its primaries before the 2006 elections. Those primaries led to the defeat of several prominent members, leading to their departure and the breakup of the party. Keen on not repeating this mistake, Lapid’s position has always been that primaries weaken parties.
Yet there is a flip side. Primaries can also energize a party and give its members a sense of ownership. The polls suggest that Yesh Atid could use some energizing, but it is questionable whether an election whose outcome seems certain by a body whose allegiance - through a convoluted selection process - can be traced back to the party, is what will do the trick.
Lapid correctly stated that democratization is a necessary step in Yesh Atid’s maturation as a ruling party. However, he was a bit over-generous in saying that this step is now what makes Yesh Atid democratic.