Netanyahu Under Pressure over Lack of Women on Likud Slate
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An open letter was published by Likud officials all over Israel in which they called on Benjamin Netanyahu, the chairman of the party, to add more women to their electoral slate.
Lack of women
Published on August 16th, the letter said that it was disappointing to see that there were only two women in the top twenty candidates of Likud in the primaries in the previous week.
Of the total 35 candidates, there were just 6 women. The Samaria Regional Council’s head and the mayors of Ashkelon and Lod were in the list of signatories of the letter.
Theoretically, more women can be included by Netanyahu, as the chairman has the authority of adding a number of people to the electoral state.
The letter highlighted that the other parties contesting in the elections had made the strategic decision of ensuring that 50% of their slates had female representation.
The letter also warned that if the party failed to add more women to their electoral slate, it would be used against them in future elections.
The highest-ranking woman of the Likud party at number 9, MK Miri Regev also told the party to add more female representation in the next Knesset.
Adding more women
She said that the Likud slate should have more women. She said that Likud was the biggest party and it was important for it to increase female representation to ensure it represents 50% of the population.
Regev said that the Likud list should be reshuffled and suitable and strong women should be given positions that would help them get seats in the elections in November.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party has pledged that women will fill every four of its ten slots.
Likewise, the center-left Labor party of Merav Michaeli has promised to make a 50/50 split.
Likud under fire
After the primary voting ended last week, the Labor party had called out Likud for its lack of female representation in its slate.
The party posted a picture of the leading vote-getters of the Likud party and adorned three of them with women’s hair, quipping that they had fixed the problem for Likud.
Another reason that Likud had come under fire was because the number of Druze politicians that are part of its slate is also on the low side.
Ayoub Kara, the former communications minister, said that they need to fix the situation where the minority representative on the Likud list is placed at the 44th position.
Even though he has been a member of the Likud party for a long time and has been slated to fill the position, it is not likely that he will be able to get a seat in the next Knesset.
This is due to the fact that current polls indicate that the Likud party, which is the biggest party in Israel, will be able to get somewhere between 30 and 35 seats in the next election scheduled for November 1st.
