Likud: This isn't a team that can manage a country; Labor: Any vote for Kadima is a vote for Likud.
By JPOST.COM STAFFbennie begin 248 88 aj(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimksi )
Both the Likud and Labor parties on Thursday morning lambasted Kadima's list of Knesset candidates, with representatives of both parties asserting that the slate determined in Wednesday's primary vote was unqualified to lead the country.
"This is not a team that can manage a country," the Likud said in a statement. "The same Kadima team with Livni at its helm has already failed...during the Second Lebanon War, in responding to the rain of Kassams in the South and in stabilizing the economy. Livni and Kadima cannot be relied upon; the nation only trusts Netanyahu and Likud, who will know how to toughen security and manage Israel's economy."
MK Gideon Sa'ar, who won second place in last week's Likud primary, said that Kadima's slate was "recycled; there are no new figures in Kadima's leadership."
Benny Begin told Israel Radio that the list was "tired and boring," adding that "Kadima's problem is its leader, Tzipi Livni."
Labor, on the other hand, claimed that Kadima's candidate list was reminiscent of Likud's. "Tonight, [Kadima members] chose the list of a temporary party, that will break up a day after the elections, with half of its members returning to the Likud," Labor said in a statement Thursday morning. "Anyone considering voting Kadima should know that he is de facto giving his vote to Likud and will strengthen the far-rightist bloc."
"I fear that people wrongly assume that Kadima is some sort of centrist party," MK Shelly Yacimovich (Labor) told Army Radio. "Kadima is no such thing... People who believe in the Labor party's values cannot put such people in the Knesset."
Labor MK Ophir Paz-Pines said the vote produced a "mediocre slate," adding that "even the few professors that remain on [the list] were demoted to unrealistic slots."
