Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday named six candidates to reserved spots on Likud’s Knesset slate, bringing the total number of his appointees on the list to nine and giving him unprecedented control over more than a third of the party’s realistic Knesset slots, just hours before the deadline to submit final candidate lists for the October 27 election.
Introducing his handpicked candidates at an event at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem, Netanyahu delivered a speech following familiar themes, warning voters that their choice is between “a strong national government or a narrow leftist government with the Arab parties.”
“We changed the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu boasted of his government’s achievements. “We crushed the Iranian axis. There is another task to complete — to defeat the Iranian regime.”
“It will fall,” he vowed. “Who will do it? We, who fought, or [Gadi] Eisenkot who asked to surrender and leave Gaza?”
Likud initially announced seven new candidates over the course of the day: close Netanyahu confidant and Channel 14 pundit Jacob Bardugo; a lawyer who has represented the premier and government on several occasions David Peter, former Labor MK Eli Goldschmidt, reservist Elisha Madan, bereaved relatives Talik Gvili and Itzik Bonzel, and retired Brig.-Gen. Amir Avivi.
