Race on for Presidential Candidates

With the Knesset’s election for the next President only three weeks away — March 22 — the political parties are moving into high gear in their efforts to select candidates.

Both Likud and Labor have set up small committees of leading Knesset members to work on this issue.

Political pundits say veteran National Religious Party leader Yosef Burg seems the most widely supported possible candidate at this point.

Within the Likud coalition, Herut, La’am, Agudat Israel and the NRP are known to be prepared to back Burg, though Tami will oppose him because of the long-standing feud between Burg and Tami’s leader Aharon Abu Hatzeira.

Burg himself, however, has not yet agreed to confirm his candidacy. He has indicated that he will do so only if and when it becomes clear that he would receive broad support, not only from coalition quarters but from sections of the Labor opposition, too.

So far, Labor has been reserving its position. Within the party there are two men who are seen as possible candidates themselves: MK Shlomo Hillel and MK Chaim Herzog. Hillel has the advantage of being a Sephardi, and Herzog has the advantage of being the son of the late Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog (and thus likely to be an acceptable choice among the religious parties). It is unlikely, however, that either of these Labor men would win support from the coalition.

Coalition members would consider it unacceptable for a Labor opposition figure to be elected President twice in a row during Likud’s incumbency in government. President Yitzhak Navon was a front bench Labor MK before becoming President in 1978.

Tami is still pushing the candidacy of Beersheba Mayor Eliahu Nawi, and Tami’s Swiss patron Nessim Goon was reported to have canvassed Premier Menachem Begin on Nawi’s behalf this week — and to have drawn a blank. Goon would also presumably support a Herzog candidacy, since the two men are related by marriage.