The Likud faced the greatest crisis in its history on the eve of the 2006 elections. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's establishment of a new party, Kadima, had left Likud in shreds. Little remained of what had once been a large ruling party. After replacing Sharon as Likud chairman, Benjamin Netanyahu convinced the party’s Central Committee to relinquish the authority to choose the party’s Knesset list and to transfer that power to the entire party membership. Netanyahu claimed that it could produce four or five more seats for their party, which was in shambles. At that time, the Central Committee had a reputation of being power hungry and corrupt. A mere 3,000 people decided on Likud’s representatives, which meant they could control the party's Knesset members.
It is still unclear how much the switch actually helped Likud. The party shrunk to just 12 seats in that election, positioning it on the smaller side of the midsized parties. Before each of the next three elections — in 2009, 2013 and 2015 — Likud held two primaries open to all party members: one to elect the party chairman and the other to choose its Knesset list.
The elections for Likud Party chair were always boring, as no real rival ever emerged to challenge Netanyahu. On the other hand, the vote to choose the list was always considered “difficult” for the contenders. Various pressure and interest groups, especially from the right and the settler movement, threatened Knesset members, forcing them to spend considerable amounts of money, sometimes out of pocket, to fund their primary campaigns. As happens in any election of this sort, various “hit lists” popped up as well.
The situation isn’t much better in the Labor Party, which also holds primaries to elect the party leader and its Knesset list. The idea of holding primaries open to all members of the party was first introduced to Israel by Yitzhak Rabin, in 1991. It was considered a refreshing new alternative to leaving such consequential decisions to the party apparatus. Over the years, however, the primary system has gone bankrupt. What began as a celebration of democracy devolved into an event for party hacks, with electoral “captains” of buses and ballot boxes, as happened when Israel Aircraft Industries’ dove in to back a candidate.
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