The new party being formed by Knesset member Orly Levy-Abekasis might not have a list of candidates yet — it doesn’t even have a name — but it is still polling at eight seats, according to survey results published April 23. As of now, it looks like it will be the brightest star in the next election.
Over the next few weeks and months, after the new party files paperwork with the Registrar of Parties, Levy-Abekasis will join the growing list of party leaders emerging from the Likud. As of now, five parties are headed by people once active in the Likud. Most of them are now in the highest echelons of the center-right leadership and play important decision-making roles in the country.
Levy-Abekasis is the daughter of former Foreign Minister David Levy, an icon of the Likud’s social wing. She was raised on the movement’s politics from an infant, but she eventually decided to join Yisrael Beitenu, led by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, himself a former Likud member. Liberman served as director general of the Prime Minister’s Office in 1996, during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term, after having been director general of the Likud. For years, he was considered the most powerful and influential person in the Likud.
After breaking with Netanyahu in 1999, Liberman left the Likud and established Yisrael Beitenu, which won 15 seats at its height, in the 2009 elections. Since then, Liberman has been a senior minister in every government. He currently holds seniority on the Security Cabinet.
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