Yair Golan’s Democrats on Sunday unveiled the 51 candidates who will compete in a July 20 primary for the votes of what the left-wing party said were 85,000 dues-paying members.

The list features current and former lawmakers as well as anti-government protest leaders, including the outspoken brother of a slain hostage.

The candidates represent a “diverse range of communities from Beit Jann in the north to Sde Boker in the south” and include 19 women, with candidates coming from the Jewish, Druze, Arab and LGBTQ communities, the party said in a statement.

Membership in The Democrats remains open until July 12, with only registered members eligible to vote in the primary, which will determine the order of the electoral slate under Golan.

The party was formed in 2024 as an alliance of the Labor and Meretz parties under Golan’s leadership. The outspoken ex-deputy chief of the IDF, who briefly served as a lawmaker for Meretz, had assumed Labor’s mantle on the heels of the public acclaim he received for his heroism during the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.

Among the candidates in the Democrats primary are MKs Naama Lazimi, Gilad Kariv and Efrat Rayten, three of Labor’s four incumbent lawmakers.

MK Merav Michaeli, who led Labor in the previous election, will not run. Michaeli was lambasted on the left for failing at the time to unite with the further-left Meretz, which in turn fell short of the electoral threshold.

Former Meretz MKs Michal Rozin, Mossi Raz, Gaby Lasky and Ali Salalha — all of whom lost their seats in the 2022 election — were among the 51 candidates running in the Democrats........

© The Times of Israel