Just a few weeks after he first made the announcement, it can be determined unequivocally that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to advance the Likud’s leadership primary — intended to stymie potential rivals — has succeeded beyond all expectations. In just a little over a month, on Feb. 23, Netanyahu will run unchallenged for the position. Some 100,000 party members will be asked to choose between him and a blank ballot.

Given that he is the only candidate, the Likud’s Central Election Committee met Jan. 11 to discuss the possibility of canceling the entire election process, which would save the party some 4 million shekels ($1 million). Another option raised during the discussion was to offer voters two distinct options on Netanyahu: “Aye” or “Nay.” The prime minister opposed both options, and insisted that he run against a blank ballot instead. He rejected the first option so that party officials could not claim in the future that a second primary round should be held, since elections were not held when scheduled. The second option was out of the question. Netanyahu was worried about being humiliated. As expected, he got exactly what he wanted.

Much to everyone’s surprise, even after the party agreed to do what he wanted, Netanyahu was overcome by an extreme case of political paranoia, unusual even for a wary politician like himself. Senior Likud Party officials told Al-Monitor that the chairman of their party began to worry about the most pessimistic scenarios, including the possibility that potential rivals such as Ministers Yisrael Katz and Haim Katz would act against him and prod their supporters to cast blank ballots in an effort to embarrass him. Netanyahu will be elected anyway, but his image would suffer considerable if he gets fewer voters than the number of blank ballots cast.

As a result of this fear, Netanyahu has demanded that polling stations be placed in as many places across the country as possible. This would make the election process easier for many and enable unaffiliated voters, who do not belong to any camp, to come to the polling stations and support him. Likud officials believe the very fact that the results of this election are known in advance will result in many members of the party to stay home and avoid voting.