The Likud’s Constitution Committee officially set August 4 as the date for the party’s Knesset primaries while advancing a constitutional amendment aimed at preventing elected officials from leaving the party to establish or join a rival political faction.
The proposed amendment would bar any Likud MK who resigns from the party to form or join another political party from returning to Likud for either three Knesset terms or 10 years, whichever is longer. The restriction would also apply to any additional Likud MKs who join the breakaway faction.
During that period, the departing lawmaker would be prohibited from holding party membership, running for positions within Likud’s institutions, or representing the party in any capacity. To make the provision difficult to reverse, the amendment would designate it as a “Basic Provision,” requiring the approval of 85% of eligible Likud Central Committee members to amend or repeal it.
The proposal also seeks to prevent defecting lawmakers from taking their state party-financing allocation with them to a new political party. Instead, the public funding associated with the mandate under which they were elected would remain with Likud, requiring any new faction to finance its activities independently.
According to the amendment’s explanatory notes, the goal is to strengthen loyalty to the movement, prevent political power gained through Likud from being used to establish competing parties, and ensure that public funding remains with the party under whose banner lawmakers were elected.
The move comes amid recent threats from figures in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s circle that if the reserved slots they seek on the next Knesset list are not approved, a senior figure could leave the party with roughly one-third of the Likud faction.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
