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Likud to hold primaries for its electoral slate by July 28; Netanyahu guaranteed top spot

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02.06.2026

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party will hold primaries for its Knesset slate no later than July 28, Tourism Minister Haim Katz said in a statement Tuesday.

Katz, who chairs the party’s constitution committee and heads the Likud Central Committee, said the committee voted unanimously on the matter Tuesday. It did not set a specific date for the primaries.

Likud held elections in November for its municipal branches and powerful Central Committee for the first time in almost 14 years. With no challenger to Netanyahu’s leadership, party members were instead asked to approve his continued tenure as party chairman, which he won.

As a result, the party’s upcoming primaries will be to select candidates for the second place and lower on the Likud Knesset slate.

The largest party in the Knesset, with 32 seats, Likud uses a complex primary system to determine much, though not all, of its candidate list. It is one of only a handful of Israeli parties that selects its Knesset slate through primaries, alongside the left-wing Democrats party, which is expected to announce internal elections in the coming weeks, and the Arab-majority Hadash, which held primaries last month.

In what may be an early indicator of party activists’ preferences, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and Energy Minister Eli Cohen received the most votes in informal mini-primaries held during........

© The Times of Israel