Foreign Minister David Levy is blaming a “plot” for his failure to win the No. 2 spot on the Likud elections list in a vote Sunday by the party’s Central Committee.
Levy ended up third among the first seven names that will follow Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s on the Likud slate for the June 23 Knesset elections.
First place was taken by Defense Minister Moshe Arens, followed by Housing Minister Ariel Sharon.
According to Levy, the Shamir-Arens faction and the Sharon faction joined forces in the Central Committee to disqualify him for the post, Levy told reporters Sunday.
His allegations were denied. Shamir, moreover, insisted in an interview Sunday that the positions on the list were “not nearly as important as the party’s membership seems to think.”
The Likud leader said the Knesset ranking is not uppermost in his mind when it comes to appointing people to Cabinet posts.
Arens has long coveted the No. 2 spot on the Likud list, which is currently held by Levy, who has ranking as deputy prime minister.
Sharon, along with Levy, challenged Shamir for party leadership, bids both men lost decisively when the Central Committee picked its elections standard-bearer on Feb. 20.
Although Levy did notably better than Sharon in that contest, he was thwarted when the Central Committee reconvened last week to select its first 50 candidates. Levy ended up 18th, while Sharon came in fourth place.
Sunday’s voting at the Tel Aviv Fair Grounds took place in a carnival atmosphere. About 90 percent of the more than 3,000 eligible voters participated.
The purpose was to arrange the candidates into seven groups of seven people each, in descending order.
SAFE SPOTS FOR WOMEN?
Following Arens, Sharon and Levy, the others in the first group of seven were Transport Minister Moshe Katsav, Deputy Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset member Binyamin Begin and Police Minister Ronni Milo.
All were recommended by the Shamir-Arens camp for their respective slots.
Voting for the second group of seven was expected to last well into the night, and the rest of the slate was to be completed Monday.
Meanwhile, the Labor Party Central Committee got into a squabble Sunday as it prepared to vote on a proposal to ensure a minimum number of safe spots on its Knesset list for women.
Women are under-represented in both major parties. There are only two in Labor’s 39-member delegation in the outgoing Knesset and one among Likud’s 40 Knesset members.
But the proposal ran into opposition from Yitzhak Rabin, who was elected Labor Party chairman last month in the country’s first primary election.
Rabin, in his maiden speech as party leader, maintained that setting aside a minimum number of spots for women would violate the spirit of open primaries.
In the end, he grudgingly agreed to some safe spots for women but insisted that the party’s male leaders also be assured of election when Labor holds another primary later this month to choose its candidates for the next Knesset.
He was referring to his longtime rival Shimon Peres and his other recent challenger, Histadrut Secretary-General Yisrael Kessar, both of whom he defeated in the primaries.
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