Six candidates met Tuesday’s deadline to run in Israel’s May elections for prime minister: Likud incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak of Labor, centrist candidate Yitzhak Mordechai, right-wing bloc leader Ze’ev “Benny” Begin, Israeli Arab legislator Azmi Beshara and former right-wing Knesset member Yosef Ba-Gad. Begin’s candidacy was almost invalidated when the election committee found that some 11,000 of the 58,000 signatures required to support his candidacy were forged. But Begin was allowed to run after he secured the backing of 10 Knesset members, an alternative to the petitions.
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