Polling stations opened across the country Monday morning for the Likud primary, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party chooses its candidates for the  October 27 national election.

Some 140,000 party members are eligible to vote in the polls, which opened at 10 a.m. and will close at 9 p.m.

One of the few parties to determine its electoral lineup via primary, Likud has long prided itself on its internal democratic process. However, changes to the system this year, pushed by Netanyahu, have shrunk the number of open spots on the roster and turned the vote into an unusually hotly contested race as party politicians jockey for a good enough showing to secure a likely Knesset seat.

Public opinion polls have consistently shown Likud getting 22-24 seats in the October 27 election, down from its current 32. A decision last month by the Likud Central Committee significantly expanded Netanyahu’s control over the party’s Knesset slate, granting him the power to place eight people of his choosing in reserved slots among the top 29 places on the list — a number subsequently expanded to nine.

Monday’s primary is going ahead despite Netanyahu’s reported efforts to cancel it and to select its Knesset slate through an appointed committee he would control.

Apart from his own spot atop the slate, which is not up for grabs in this vote, Netanyahu now controls the 3rd, 5th, 9th, 11th, 15th, 18th, 26th and 29th slots, giving him unprecedented influence over the party’s roster.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Likud Central Committee chair Haim Katz and political newcomer Oren Dobronsky have already been handed three of the eight earmarked slots — while Defense Minister Israel Katz was given an additional ninth reserved spot.

In a statement released through a party spokesman Sunday night, Netanyahu said that during the primary he will cast his ballot “for a winning list that will ensure [Yashar party chairman Gadi] Eisenkot and [The Democrats party chairman] Yair Golan do not form a narrow government with the Arab parties as they’ve promised.”

Yair Golan is the only member of the opposition to support forming a government with the Islamist Ra’am party, a possibility which has been publicly rejected by the other anti-Netanyahu bloc leaders. Ra’am was a........

© The Times of Israel