Mapam, one of the three dovish parties that make up the new Meretz peace bloc, selected an Israeli Arab on Sunday as one of its candidates for the June 23 Knesset elections.
The party’s 600-member Central Committee chose the incumbent leader of its three-member Knesset faction, Yair Tsaban, for the No. 1 spot. Haim Oron was unanimously re-elected for second place.
Third place went to Walid Sa’adek, a veteran left-wing Arab leader from Taiba, after a lengthy voting process that eliminated seven other candidates for the slot.
The first three names on Mapam’s list will rank second, sixth and ninth respectively on the joint Meretz list.
The new party, whose name is an acronym that forms the word “Energy,” consists of the Citizens Rights Movement, Mapam and the Center-Shinui Movement. They have a combined total of 10 seats in the outgoing 12th Knesset and hope to increase their representation significantly in the 13th.
Recent opinion polls have encouraged leaders of the three parties, which seem to have lost only negligible support among their traditional constituencies by deciding to pool forces.
At the same time, they seem to be attracting support from new voters. Straw polls recently conducted in several non-Orthodox Jerusalem high schools put Meretz ahead of both Likud and Labor.
Shinui chose its candidates last week. The CRM will choose early next month. CRM leader Shulamit Aloni will head the Meretz list, since her party, with five Knesset seats, is the largest of the three.
Shinui, the smallest faction of the new party, re-elected its incumbent Knesset members, Amnon Rubinstein and Avraham Poraz. They will be in the third and seventh places respectively on the Meretz list.
The third Shinui slot went to Hebrew University Orientalist Yehoshua Porat, who will run 13th on the joint list.
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