New Hope MK Sharren Haskel told police on Sunday that her own faction ordered its lawmakers to record themselves casting ballots for Michael Rabello, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the vote for state comptroller in June, and to show their votes to the premier.

In her testimony to investigators from the Lahav 433 major crimes unit, Haskel said that the instruction to record the votes came down from New Hope MK Michel Buskila, the party whip, a source familiar with the investigation was cited by Kan as saying.

Police are expected to collect testimony from other New Hope MKs who would have received the same instructions, the report said. In an interview with the broadcaster last week, New Hope MK and Minister Ze’ev Elkin denied receiving such instructions.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who chairs New Hope, rejected the claim in an affidavit submitted to the High Court of Justice.

Sa’ar, who was abroad at the time of the vote, wrote that Haskel’s claims are “not only baseless, they’re also irrelevant and are designed to generate a media provocation.”

He insisted there was no such demand by the ruling Likud party, and said that he too made clear to party members that they were not supposed to video themselves casting their ballots.

The comptroller election was marred by at least six coalition MKs recording their vote, which opposition parties and government watchdog groups have alleged was done on the instructions of senior Likud officials.

The High Court of Justice ruled........

© The Times of Israel