Whenever the era of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Likud leader ends, there are expected to be many contenders to succeed him.Recent primaries in other parties proved that party leader is the kind of job that draws a crowd. Labor had eight contenders for the job won by Avi Gabbay in the July 4 primary.
Meretz’s March 22 leadership race has nine candidates, even though the party has only five seats.
How much more so the Likud – which along with its forerunners since before the founding of the state 70 years ago – has been led by only four men: Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu. That means this is a job with staying power.
The four main candidates are expected to be former minister Gideon Sa’ar, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Transportation and Intelligence Services Minister Israel Katz, and Netanyahu’s current number two in Likud, Public Security and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan.
Sa’ar was the Likud’s number two in two elections. Erdan, Edelstein and Katz finished a small number of votes apart in the party’s last primary. All four have a strong base of loyalists. READ MORE
