Likud and its coalition partner, the National Religious Party, are embroiled in internal power struggles that may result in the splintering of each even before the campaign for the July 23 elections gets underway.
Likud’s two main components, Herut and the Liberal Party, are at odds over Herut’s decision to “review” their 20 year-old agreement for the allocation of places on the Likud election slate. Herut activists contend that the Liberals, who presently hold 18 Knesset mandates to 26 for Herut are over represented in proportion to their actual electoral strength. The Liberals fiercely deny this and threaten to dissolve their alliance with Herut if the status quo is tampered with.
The problem within the NRP is the election list proposed by Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapiro which favors the Lamifne faction, headed by veteran party leader Yosef Burg over other factions. Intended as a formula to restore peace among the warring NRP factions, it appears to be having the opposite effect.
The NRP’s women’s movement, Emuna, announced that it would run a separate slate because of the low position it was allocated by Shapiro. The religious kibbutz movement was also reported to be contemplating a breakaway. Hanan Porat’s Orot faction said it would run separately and the Young Guard faction, led by Education Minister Zevulun Hammer, is known to be considering a rejection of the Chief Rabbi’s formula.
The Likud Utemura faction, formerly headed by Yitzhak Raphael, is said to be unhappy with the “scant recognition” accorded it by Shapiro.
PROPOSED FORMULA
The Chief Rabbi proposed that the number one spot on the NRP list would be filled by Burg who is Minister of Interior in the outgoing government. The number two spot would go to Rabbi Haim Druckman, a political hawk who broke away from the NRP last year to form the dissident Matsad faction. Hammer would get the number three spot and the next three spots would go to Sephardic members of the party.
The combination of Burg, a moderate and the hawkish Druckman, is considered anomolous by political observers. The other factions would be represented in the seventh through twelfth spots on the NRP list, severely reducing their possibility of election to the next Knesset.
The NRP’s Knesset faction was halved, from 12 to six, in the 1981 elections and suffered a further loss by Druckman’s defection. Shapiro insists that if his formula is accepted, the party would regain its original 12 seats. But many politicians, studying public opinion polls, predict a further decline for the religious party.
CONTEST FOR LIBERAL LEADERSHIP
Meanwhile, Deputy Premier David Levy has been entrusted by the Herut Central Committee with the task of “examining” the Herut-Liberal agreement. It was concluded in the mid-sixties between then Herut leader Menachem Begin and the late Simcha Ehrlich, leader of the Liberal Party.
Justice Minister Moshe Nissim and other Liberal leaders are firmly united in opposition to any changes Levy might recommend. Denying that the Liberal Party has a disproportionately high representation in the Knesset, they point out that neither the Liberais nor Herut has been tested separately at the polls for two decades.
Energy Minister Yitzhak Modai informed Premier Yitzhak Shamir last Sunday that the Liberals refuse to renegotiate their agreement with Herut before the elections. Nissim said yesterday that Modai’s meeting with Shamir was uncalled for because the Liberal Party Presidium had already ruled out any dialogue over Herut’s demands.
Nissim and Modai are both contending for leadership of the Liberal Party. Another candidate is Knesset Speaker Menachem Savidor. That issue will be decided when the Liberal Party’s Central Committee meets on April 26.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
