Ya'alon Throws Hat Into Prime Ministerial Ring

Jerusalem, 5 March, 2017 (TPS) -- Former Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon has announced he intends to form a new political party and run for Prime Minister in the next elections. He made the announcement yesterday at a “Shabbat-Tarbut” event at Tel Aviv’s Habimah Theater.

Observers were not surprised by the announcement, as it is an open secret that he has been planning such a move for some time. He has been meeting with a broad range of political and policy advisers to begin laying the foundations for such a party.  At the moment, he has registered an NGO, which will be his organizational platform, until the new party is formally established.

Ya’alon has the potential to be a game changer, as he is the only candidate who can take votes from the Likud towards the center. For the past three elections, voters have changed their allegiances within the blocks, but have not crossed them. On the right, voters have moved back and forth between Likud and Jewish Homeland (Bayit Yehudi). On the left, voters have gone from Labor to Yesh Atid, headed by Yair Lapid, and back to Labor, but the right wing- religious block has maintained a lock on a parliamentary majority since 2009.

The last time Likud voters cross-voted was in 2006, when Kadima, headed by Ehud Olmert, crushed it 29:12, taking at least 26 seats from the right wing and transferring them to the center-left block, enabling him to form a center-left government.

Kadima was founded by Ariel Sharon, who had been Likud leader and PM from 2001 until 2006, when he suffered a debilitating stroke. Sharon left his own party when it refused to back his centrist policies that included the withdrawal from Gaza.

Netanyahu unceremoniously fired Ya’alon, who had been seen as his most likely heir, in order to enable him to bring Lieberman into the coalition. Lieberman’s price was the Defense Ministry, which he had to have in order to be regarded as a legitimate post-Netanyahu prime ministerial candidate. Ya’alon resigned from the Knesset, and from the Likud.

Ya’alon, like Sharon, was from the Likud’s moderate wing. Over the past decade, the moderates have lost ground in the party to the more radical right wing, which has increased its presence in the parliamentary faction and the Central Committee, at the expense of the moderates. Netanyahu dumped Ya’alon when he decided not to confront the radicals as Sharon had done, but to appease them.    This means that there is a possibility Ya’alon could take the Likud’s more moderate voters, which provide between a third to half of its seats. This means Ya’alon starts out with a potential base of between 10-15 seats.

Ya’alon is also a potentially attractive candidate to Labor’s pragmatic centrist wing. He has a Labor background, and is still formally a member of Kibbutz Grofit. If either Amir Peretz or Shelly Yehimovitch, both of whom are seen to represent Labor’s left wing, win the next primaries, Ya’alon could siphon votes from Labor as well. Tzipi Livni would also probably join him, and she has already proved she has a small but loyal base of voters that is worth 4-5 seats. He could also be an attractive alternative to Yesh Atid voters, who believe Lapid is not yet ready to be Prime Minister.