Edelstein, Erdan to coordinate strategy in Likud race

Obtaining an endorsement from the two political free agents would give a huge boost to either candidate.

By GIL HOFFMAN
IF IT takes another round of elections to get the Likud to act, let it be. (photo credit: REUTERS)
IF IT takes another round of elections to get the Likud to act, let it be.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Future Likud Party leadership candidates Yuli Edelstein and Gilad Erdan agreed on Tuesday to cooperate ahead of the December 26 leadership race between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and MK Gideon Sa’ar, sources close to the two men said.
Edelstein and Erdan, who met at a cafe near the Knesset on Tuesday, are the only senior Likud figures who have not endorsed either candidate in the race. The two have been wooed by both Netanyahu and Sa’ar, with whom they have each had their ups and downs in their personal and political relations. Obtaining an endorsement from the two political free agents would give a huge boost to either candidate.
“It is true that they met and decided to coordinate strategy,” a source close to Edelstein said.
Edelstein’s associates denied a KAN Radio report that key Likud activists loyal to Edelstein have begun working for Netanyahu at his behest, saying that his supporters support both candidates independently of Edelstein.
Netanyahu spent Tuesday campaigning in the North, holding rallies in Nahariya, Acre, Haifa and the Druze town of Yarka. Druze activists protested against Netanyahu in Yarka, due to his support for the controversial Jewish Nation-State Law.
Likud sources confirmed that if Netanyahu wins the leadership primary, his campaign for the March 2 Knesset election would focus on his accomplishments as prime minister and not on fighting the legal establishment. Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Likud MK Nir Barkat had called for such a positive strategy.
Sa’ar filed an appeal to the Likud and the Central Elections Committee on Tuesday asking for his representatives at polling stations at the primaries to use cameras to report potential wrongdoing. Sa’ar’s attorneys wrote in the appeal that enabling the cameras in polling stations will ensure the “purity of the elections” and guarantee that the race will be fair, clean and democratic while also maintaining the right to privacy in the vote.
The attorneys noted in the appeal that Netanyahu asked for cameras in the September 17 general election in order to combat ballot tampering, and he should be allowed to do the same inside his own party. Netanyahu accepted Sa’ar’s request for the cameras.
Sports and Culture Minister Miri Regev, who supports Netanyahu in the primary, accused Sa’ar, of “betraying” Netanyahu in an interview with Army Radio on Tuesday.
Regev also accused Sa’ar of “undermining” Netanyahu and of “firing inside the Armored Personnel Carrier” of Likud. Regev was referring to Sa’ar’s decision to call for a snap primary during the 21 days when it was legally possible for any MK to form a government. When such accusations were made against Sa’ar in the past he responded that he never left Likud, even when he received offers from other parties during a break that he took from politics, and that Netanyahu called for a snap primary a month before he did.


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