Many candidates vie for position of Netanyahu's chief rival

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ratings have been plunging in recent months, especially over the farcical handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his poor performance in managing the crisis. Within weeks, Netanyahu’s Likud lost the equivalent of 10-13 Knesset seats (out of 120) in the polls, but his alignment of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties still commands at least 60 seats.

The bloc is holding steady because rather than migrating to the political center-left, disenchanted Netanyahu voters are moving to the right, to Naftali Bennett's Yamina party, which is soaring in the polls. Opposition head Yair Lapid, chair of the centrist Yesh Atid party, who should have been sweeping up Netanyahu and Likud leavers, is hardly benefitting from the shift. His party is stuck in the polls at 19 seats, the record it obtained in the 2013 elections when Lapid first ran, and has been unable to break through this glass ceiling.

On Sept. 2, Lapid sustained an additional, surprising and particularly painful blow, when his partner, friend and perennial No. 2, one of the party’s leading lawmakers, Ofer Shelah, demanded that primaries be held for the Yesh Atid leadership and announced his intention to challenge Lapid and beat him. The public and pundits were taken aback by this “September surprise” given the seemingly firm and stable front the party has displayed since its founding eight years ago.

Lapid and Shelah have been friends since the late 1980s, when they both worked as journalists for the Maariv newspaper. They have since maintained a close relationship. Over the years, Shelah has made major concessions to accommodate his unwavering loyalty to Lapid, and no one thought he would be the one to rebel and demand a process of democratization in the party that Lapid shaped and commanded that has consistently marched to his tune.