The Movement for Quality Government in Israel filed a High Court of Justice petition on Thursday against the appointment of Michael Rabello, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal lawyer, as the next state comptroller, charging that his election in a Knesset vote was seriously flawed.

The petition argues that coalition MKs who filmed or photographed themselves putting a voting slip for Rabello into the ballot box, reportedly on orders of the Likud party, violated Basic Law: The State Comptroller, which says the vote must be secret. Thus, says the petition, they undermined the freedom of other MKs to vote their conscience and by extension the political independence of Rabello as comptroller.

During the course of the election process on Wednesday, Rabello lost the first round of voting to retired Supreme Court judge Yosef Elron 60-57, but a second round was required because neither candidate secured the necessary 61 votes.

Reports emerged that during the second round of voting that Likud party officials, including at least one MK close to Netanyahu, had instructed coalition lawmakers to vote for Rabello and send the prime minister videos or pictures of themselves voting inside the ballot box, to prove they had voted for his candidate.

The second round was scrapped midway through amid an uproar in the Knesset plenum from opposition MKs.

Prior to restarting the vote anew, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana rejected the recommendation of Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik to bar phones from the voting area to protect the secrecy of the ballot, ruling that lawmakers could photograph themselves if they chose.

During the second iteration of round two of the vote, some Likud MKs again took photos and videos of themselves voting for Rabello, and apparently sent them to Netanyahu, some of which leaked to the........

© The Times of Israel