Race to replace Peres is on
THE race to choose Israel’s next president is officially on, after June 10 was selected this week as the date for the election.
This means that potential candidates are now scrambling to each secure signatures of 10 Knesset members who back them, in order to qualify to run. They need the supporters signed up by Tuesday.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein is thought to have chosen the date, which is more than a fortnight earlier than it needs to be, to calm what was becoming a dirty campaign.
An anonymous video tried to discredit Reuven Rivlin, a Likud Knesset member who plans to stand, by showing him in the company of (subsequently) convicted criminals Ehud Olmert and Moshe Katsav, former prime minister and former president respectively.
Silvan Shalom, another Likud member who is widely expected to stand, was the subject of a recent police investigation following claims that he sexually assaulted woman during a stint as minister 15 years ago. The investigation is now closed, but some commentators say the claim could come back to haunt him if he stands.
The Labour candidate Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was reported by Israeli television to have had membership cards to several casinos in London during a stint as government minister just over a decade ago. This is considered a slur in Israel, where gambling is illegal.
As these three candidates have dealt with the claims against them, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been attempting to drum up support to delay the presidential election and extend the term of the incumbent Shimon Peres. According to some accounts, he was trying to abolish the presidency altogether.
Rivlin’s campaign seems to rest on his long parliamentary career and his strongly nationalistic credentials. His backer Uri Orbach lauded him this week as a “true patriot” and said that the country deserves a “seasoned” politician.
Shalom has not given any clues as to what his campaign may look like, as he is refusing to confirm whether he is running.
Ben-Eliezer has positioned himself as a candidate promoting reconciliation between Israel’s different demographics, declaring that he will “transform the President’s residence into an open house that facilitates genuine dialogue between all populations”.
Other candidates include Nobel Prize winning scientist Dan Schechtman, retired Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner, and Yosef Abramowitz, a solar energy entrepreneur who is the brother-in-law of American comedienne Sarah Silverman.
NATHAN JEFFAY