The polling station in the south Tel Aviv neighborhood of Yad Eliyahu opened at 7 a.m., but by mid-morning the location still had the unhurried rhythm of a neighborhood waking up slowly. About fifty people milled around a large plaza in front of Menora Mivtachim Arena — a mix of candidates, volunteers and a slow stream of voters for the first internal Likud elections held in 13 years.

The elections in Yad Eliyahu, one of dozens of polling stations across the country that opened Monday for Likud members, will decide the composition of both local chapter councils and delegates to the party’s Central Committee, a powerful body that selects Likud’s internal leadership.

Four local Likud branches were voting in Yad Eliyahu — Kfar Shalem, Hatikvah, Yad Eliyahu and South Tel Aviv — representing roughly 2,500 registered members, out of approximately 150,000 eligible voters estimated nationwide.

Yad Eliyahu, a working-class neighborhood east of the Ayalon highway, is itself a longstanding Likud stronghold, historically home to some of the party’s most influential leaders, making it both a symbolic and practical site for the vote.

Mostly older men populated the plaza, the habitual loyalists of Likud’s internal politics. They lounged on plastic chairs, reminiscing about past party struggles or greeting neighbors with practiced familiarity. Around them were arrays of tents and folding tables manned by volunteers for specific candidates. Women were rare, and the median age seemed to sit firmly in the mid-60s.

One volunteer tent stood out: a cluster of younger activists, all there on behalf of 26-year-old Mori Orkabi, one of the few young contenders in this election cycle and an unmistakable outlier amid the gray-haired loyalists.

An activist and former deputy chair of Likud Youth, Orkabi’s day job is as an adviser to a politician he preferred not to name. He had the restless, alert posture of someone who’d been preparing for this day far longer than his age might suggest.

“I’ve been getting ready for this conference for several years,” he said. “I’ve visited hundreds of people in south Tel Aviv.”

For Orkabi, these internal elections, choosing local council members and delegates to the Likud Central Committee, are not a minor procedural exercise. To him, they are a gateway into the party’s most powerful organs.

“The Central Committee elects everything,” he explained. “The court, the secretariat, the constitution committee and if [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu were to end his term, they’d elect the next prime minister.”

Orkabi was seeking a seat on the Kfar Shalem chapter council and a coveted spot in the Central Committee. The stakes, he said, are high, since opportunities to run aren’t regularly held. The last time elections were held, Orkabi was 12 years old.

“This is a chance for a lot of young people to compete. Anyone who doesn’t run or doesn’t win now is out of the game by the time they’re about 40,” he said.

For Orkabi, being part of the Likud is in........

© The Times of Israel