Patriarch undisputed israeli right for 20 years, prime minister since a decade ago, Benjamin Netanyahu has been proclaimed winner in the primaries of the Likud party held the Thursday before the former minister Gideon Saar, in spite of having been accused for corruption by the attorney general. Saar, the only leader who dared to challenge his leadership in the conservative party, israeli, fell defeated to the head of Government, according to official results, with a 27.5% of the vote compared to 72.5% of its rival. The president was proclaimed the winner with "a tremendous victory" before they announced the data of the count, the first hour of the early morning of Friday.

The allegations of fraud and bribery in three cases, which are added to the block parliamentary system that prevented him from forming a Government after two elections held in Israel this year, does not seem to have reduced the unconditional support of the members of the Likud to their leader. Netanyahu struggle desperately to continue at the helm of power. An eventual defeat would have been deprived of the armour which gives the law to stay in office, at least until the new legislative convened in march.

the stations of The cross political of the prime minister, however, will continue within two days. The attorney-general, Avichai Mandleblit, must decide on Sunday whether Netanyahu can re-stand for election after being accused, according to a decision of the Supreme. The judges of the High Court will have the final word from Tuesday. By Thursday, in addition, Netanyahu has to ask the Knesset (Parliament) to declare his immunity to the accusations of the prosecution.

Another ruler in Israel would have already thrown probably in the towel. Your predecessor in office, Ehud Olmert, resigned before being tried and jailed for corruption. But Netanyahu is embarked in recent days in an accelerated race to be ensured at all cost, victory in the primary, a result that the majority of political analysts predict. At the age of 70, he has not hesitated to attend up to five meetings on the same evening.

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The hectic campaign led him Wednesday to Ashqelon, coastal city in israel next to the Gaza strip, where the prime minister had to be evacuated by his bodyguards when he intervened in an act of the Likud due to the launching of a rocket from the palestinian enclave. The shooting triggered the alarm sirens that give the order to go to the race to the shelters antibombardeo, although the projectile was finally intercepted by the defensive shield Iron Dome.

this Is the second time that Netanyahu has to give a speech to get to safety. Already starred in a scene similar to the last September, on the eve of the last general elections, in the nearby port city of Ashdod.

“it Seems that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad don't want you to win me,” he quipped upon his return to the rostrum of speakers at the end of the alarm, before warning: “The one who launched the rockets the last time is no longer among us, and to whom it was released now you can go packing up your belongings.” In the first case, the representative made reference to the commander of the Islamic Jihad Baha Abu al-Ata, killed in an attack by the Army last November, during an operation that sparked an intense escalation of the war.

despite the mishaps in the campaign, Netanyahu tried to tie the result of the primaries to the challenge of Saar, who was his right arm in the party and the Government until it fell in disgrace in 2014 to support the candidacy of Reuven Rivlin, another rival of procedure of the leader of the Likud party, as president of the State of Israel.

Thanks to the absolute control which the chief Executive exercised over the machinery of the party, hundreds of militants considered favorable to Saar were purged from the census of the primary for administrative reasons. The responsible of the candidacy of the candidate alleged that in some tables the voting had begun on the Thursday before the scheduled time, without the presence of their external auditors.

Participation of 49% of the militants

The storm of wind and rain sweeping the middle East made that would reduce the influx to the polls among the nearly 120,000 members of the party. After the election day, they placed their ballot, about 49% of the militants at the close of the more than 100 polling stations to 23.00 (22.00 in peninsular Spain).

Netanyahu, who voted in Jerusalem, called the participation via the social networks. “The rate of voters is very low, the victory of the right one depends on you”, he appealed to members to the Likud in a message on Twitter. Also a video surfaced on Facebook that showed him making phone calls to party members to encourage them to vote.

Saar, for its part, came under the rain to a polling station for the Likud party in Tel Aviv. “We can win and take a new path that allows us to form a strong and stable Government”, declared to the press, to emphasize that is considered to be the only candidate capable of forming a Cabinet coalition with a sufficient majority in the Knesset. In his campaign, however, Saar has not launched attacks against the cases of corruption of the prime minister.

despite the clear advantage of starting from Netanyahu, the celebration of the primaries —the first of the Likud in five years, and the only really contested since 2005— reflected the gap open in the great game of zionism revisionist or conservative after their long period of hegemony.

“we're in a battle between the passion and the adhesion to an old leader, on the one hand, and reason and ideas that represents the new candidate”, argued the columnist Ben Caspit in the pages of the daily newspaper Maariv. “Defeat Netanyahu seemed an impossible mission, but even shimon Peres was defeated against all odds [in the primary labour of 2005]”.

Netanyahu, the ruler who more time has remained in power in the jewish State, faced with everything in their arsenal political to his former disciple in the Likud, a leader valued by conservative constituents, despite their coldness and terseness. Even without the charism, the word of a chief captain, and the experience of man of State to the prime minister, Saar represents a generation of conservative politicians, free of the ballast of the corruption. If you exceed the pitfalls of judicial proceedings that await you, Netanyahu will still have to give the battle at the polls on 2 march to the former general Benny Gantz, the leader of the opposition center-left who has tied in the last two elections.

Gideon Saar, iron fist nationalistic glove liberal

The former minister Gideon Saar, Thursday Tel Aviv. ABIR SULTAN EFE

the Son of a doctor of argentine origin, Gideon Saar (Tel Aviv, 1966) he practiced journalism in his youth, while studying Political Science and Law. Expert in legal issues, with only 22 years he was secretary of the Cabinet of Benjamin Netanyahu, and later in the prime minister's Ariel Sharon, before climbing positions in the Likud.

His political career led him to a seat in the Knesset, starting in 2003, and to perform the portfolios of Interior and Education since 2009, Netanyahu, as leader of the israeli right wing, condemned him to ostracism in 2014. Could only return to Parliament in the elections of last April, after five years of crossing the desert.

“Saar is even more extremist than Netanyahu in regards to the occupation of the palestinian territories,” stressed the political analyst Daniel Kupervaser, “but at the same time is not mortgaged by the corruption cases and, unlike the prime minister, who has already demonstrated two times their inability to reach an agreement on a coalition, can form a unity Government without being vetted by the opposition center-left”.

While the head of Government is careful not to pass red lines of the international community as well as the forced evacuation of the village bedouin of Khan al Ahmar, east of Jerusalem, Saar declares to be a supporter of run for immediate eviction.

Defendant a “traitor” by the old guard of the Likud, the rival of Netanyahu in the primaries aspires to represent the figure of turnover of power in the right before the end of the reign that is coming. Covered by an image of israeli liberal Tel Aviv, embodies first of all the nationalist ideology prevailing in Jerusalem and the interior of the country.

Date Of Update: 27 December 2019, 01:00