Is Israeli Foreign Minister Lapid's Yesh Atid a party of one?

Yesh Atid's founder and chair, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, announced Nov. 13 that his party would hold its first ever leadership primary.

Lapid has headed Yesh Atid since he first founded the party almost 10 years ago, in early 2012. In that time, he has been the sole power in the party, personally appointing people to every position in the party apparatus and even selecting which members would run on the party’s Knesset list. Once they were elected, he decided on which committees they would serve. In some cases, he decided between elections to remove certain Knesset members from the party list (often because they rubbed him the wrong way). When the coalition was formed half a year ago, it was Lapid, of course, who decided which members would be appointed ministers and which ministries they would occupy.

Given all of this, his announcement that there would be a primary to decide who would head the second-largest party in the Knesset was met with skepticism and cynicism by the media and, of course, the broader political system. It was too early to forget the circumstances that led to Lapid’s No. 2 person in the party, former Knesset member Ofer Shelah, to end his political career less than a year ago. He not only demanded that Lapid hold a primary for the party’s leadership, he did this publicly, in interviews with the press.

Lapid not only rejected the idea unequivocally, he also cut all ties with Shelah, even though Shelah was thought for years to be the person closest to Lapid, and to have been his closest confidant ever since the party was first founded. Shelah’s abrupt departure from Yesh Atid offered a glimpse into the inner workings of the party and placed Lapid under scrutiny and criticism.