“A leader has to know how to work with his people, push them ahead and not compete with them. But [Knesset member (MK) and head of the Labor Party] Shelly Yachimovich is like the basketball player who wants to score all the points himself, and that is not the way to win a championship.” Using analogies from the world of sports, this is how MK Erel Margalit described Yachimovich’s leadership style. 

Margalit is one of the engines pushing MK Isaac (Buji) Herzog, who will try on Nov. 21 to unseat Yachimovich. An additional player is MK Eitan Cabel as well as MK Merav Michaeli, who joined their camp recently. Margalit, too, is a Knesset freshman, but he went into politics from the top echelons of business entrepreneurship, with a well-formulated plan to reach the pyramid’s top. He has not buried his aspiration, but has put his plan on hold. For now, he is fully committed to Herzog’s victory, enjoying the team play. 

It is a tight race. Yachimovich found herself caught up in this power struggle after failing to lead the party to significant achievements in the January Knesset elections, and by virtue of the antagonism she generates among large groups in the party and her extreme centralization. But she is putting up a fight. She has a camp, and she is the incumbent leader, meaning that she controls the party apparatus — a great advantage in an internal runoff.