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.
